Latest / Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson / Is Your Horse Holding Its Breath?: Balance, Diagonals & the Physiology of Feel | Patrick King | LFRF 63

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Is Your Horse Holding Its Breath?: Balance, Diagonals & the Physiology of Feel | Patrick King | LFRF 63 · Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

0:00
Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.
0:01
Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.
0:03
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of
0:06
The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.
0:08
Before I jump in with today's guest, I want to say a huge thank you to you, our
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books, and other courses, please go to rupertisaacson.com.
0:34
So now let's jump in.
0:36
Welcome back to Live Free, Ride Free.
0:38
I've got Patrick King, who I'm meeting for the first time.
0:41
And I love this because I've heard of him.
0:43
You know, I'm sure lots of you have heard of him, and those of you who
0:46
are online, you see his stuff around.
0:48
But since we started putting out a bunch of YouTube videos, it's, it's very nice.
0:51
Really nice horse people have sort of reached out and commented, and
0:54
then we're like, "Oh, well, why don't we have a conversation then?"
0:57
And so here we are doing that.
0:59
And what's lovely about this is that it allows a kind of organic exchange of
1:06
what knowledge we've sort of accrued over the years and where we'd like it to go.
1:12
And many of these conversations, Patrick was actually saying this
1:15
just now often happen between horse people not in a public forum, and
1:19
so therefore the contents of those conversations often don't get
1:24
disseminated democratically, let's say.
1:27
So that's the point of this.
1:29
So now Patrick and I also share a mentor.
1:32
We share a mentor in the great Luis ValenÃ§a in, in Lisbon, so we're sort of
1:37
hatching out of the same egg basically.
1:39
But I th- I have a strong suspicion that the way in which we both found
1:43
our way there is rather different, and so therefore the insights we might
1:47
be taking away from it are rather different and therefore worth sharing.
1:50
So Patrick, thanks for coming on and being a good sport.
1:54
Who are you?
1:54
Where do you live?
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What do you do and why?
1:58
Patrick King: All those questions.
1:59
Gosh.
1:59
Yeah.
2:00
Well, first, thank you so much, Rupert.
2:01
It's yeah, like you said, you know, the shared mentor,
2:04
shared teacher in Senhora Luis.
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It's, I've, I've heard of you since my first trip visiting with the ValenÃ§as,
2:10
and so you've been in the back of my mind on my radar like, "Who is this guy?
2:13
I want to learn more about what he's doing."
2:15
And so thank you for the content that you put out because I've
2:18
been enjoying it very much lately.
2:21
And and thank you for the opportunity to chat.
2:23
It's a great way to meet virtually before we do in person
2:26
at some point, so thank you.
2:28
There
2:28
Rupert Isaacson: will be pints involved, I'm sure.
2:31
Then we can save ourselves from ourselves, yeah.
2:33
But yeah, no, y- you're Canadian, right?
2:34
Patrick King: I'm not.
2:35
No, no, no.
2:35
No.
2:35
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, I thought you were.
2:37
Okay.
2:37
Nope.
2:37
Well, then I stand corrected.
2:38
Okay.
2:38
Patrick King: You know, that's interesting though because I think you're like
2:40
the third person- A lot of people tell you that â¦ who has said that.
2:42
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
2:43
I, I, I think 25-
2:44
Patrick King: Must be because I'm so nice.
2:45
The Canadians are all so nice, I hear.
2:46
Rupert Isaacson: It's, it must be.
2:47
All right.
2:47
So you're, you're, you're as Canadian as you can be while being
2:51
an American, which normally means one comes from Michigan, actually.
2:54
It- Tell us, okay, who you are, where are you from, what do you do, wh-
2:58
and why are you doing this stuff?
2:59
Patrick King: There we go.
3:00
Well, why, could we do anything else?
3:02
So yeah, so I I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, had a short stint
3:07
as a young boy as an Army brat in Germany for a couple years
3:10
- Yeah â¦ but that was all pre-horses.
3:12
But I come originally from Western Pennsylvania with experience
3:17
with lots of different horses.
3:18
Growing up I was in the 4H program and showed in, you know, some of
3:21
the local organizations, everything.
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Were
3:24
Rupert Isaacson: your parents horsey?
3:25
Patrick King: They were horsey, yep.
3:26
My stepmother rode five-gaited saddlebreds, Right â¦ when she was
3:29
younger, and she had Arabians whenever my young brother and I moved over
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from Germany to live with our father.
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And so that's where the horse bug kind of started is that was just part of it.
3:41
So- So we had Arabs, and Quarter Horses, and Paints, and Minis, and,
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you know, lots of different breeds.
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And, and through the, like I say, through the 4H and things like
3:50
that, I got exposure to a lot of different activities with the
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horses which was, was really great.
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I live now in Virginia.
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I live right up against the Blue Ridge Mountains.
4:01
You, you can't find a bad view no matter where you look here.
4:04
Rupert Isaacson: Where exactly?
4:06
Patrick King: Lexington.
4:07
Natural Bridge,
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Rupert Isaacson: technically.
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But my- I, I, my first ever horse job in the US was in Clarke County, further up.
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Shenandoah.
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Patrick King: Okay.
4:13
Yeah.
4:13
Rupert Isaacson: And I know just how astonishingly beautiful that landscape is.
4:17
It's, yeah.
4:17
Patrick King: Yeah, it really is.
4:18
Yeah, it really is.
4:20
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
4:21
Patrick King: But yeah, so I along my journey I landed sort of an apprenticeship
4:27
opportunity with a horseman named Ray Hunt who's pretty popular on the
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Western horsemanship side of things.
4:33
Rupert Isaacson: I've heard of Ray Hunt, absolutely.
4:35
Patrick King: Yeah, yeah.
4:36
So I got the opportunity to spend extended time with Ray.
4:39
Got to live with him for a couple months and that changed a lot of
4:44
things for sure, really helped me to see more, to see things differently.
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I thought I knew what I was doing up to that point, but realized
4:54
that I didn't know anything.
4:55
Ray's book was one of those that you would readâ¦
4:58
I did anyway.
4:58
I would read it every winter for a number of years, and every year I would say, "Oh,
5:02
this is, this is what he's talking about."
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And then the next year I'd read it and I'd say, "No, dummy, it wasn't that.
5:08
This is what he's talking about."
5:10
And, and that just kept repeating, and then when I got to ride with
5:14
him, it was, it was, "Oh, no, this is what he's talking about."
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Like, "You don't even have a clue," you know?
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That idea of words meaning more, things meaning more based on our experience.
5:25
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
5:26
Anyway, so- This is often a problem, isn't it?
5:27
You know, that, that- Oh, it is â¦ the translation through books is tricky.
5:29
Yeah.
5:29
Patrick King: Yeah, absolutely.
5:31
Absolutely.
5:32
It, it's, we, we understand from where we're coming from
5:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
5:39
And that sadly, most horse books are written by horse people who are-
5:44
Mm-hmm â¦ terrible communicators.
5:45
Let's just admit that.
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So they're not- Absolutely â¦ taught how to communicate.
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They're not taught any kind of pedagogy.
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They're not- Mm-hmm â¦ taught how to write.
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So it's an- Yeah â¦ absolute cra- and they tend not to
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edit their stuff that well.
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And by the time they're writing, they tend to have a bunch of yes-men around
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them who just say, "Oh, you're a genius."
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So they don't say, "Actually, what do you mean by that?
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No, sorry, you just contradicted yourself in that context over there."
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Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
6:06
Rupert Isaacson: And I think we've had that problem all the
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way down the old dead dudes.
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Patrick King: Yeah, totally
6:12
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: whether they were aristocrats writing for each other,
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or whether they, in the more modern context, were sort of people who wanted
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to keep a certain mystique or just- Mm
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simply weren't very good at communicating, but were very good practitioners.
6:25
Mm-hmm.
6:25
And so I think a lot of us have been stumbling around, you know, as you
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say, trying to piece it together.
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And then when- It's very much â¦ you actually do get in front of one of
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those mentors, you're like, "Oh, right."
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But what are the odds that I can get there, you know?
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For every one person that gets there- Exactly â¦ are 10,000 that don't.
6:41
Okay, so you- Exactly â¦ you got to Ray Hunt.
6:43
And- Mm-hmm â¦ now you, obviously you and I share the great
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Luis Valenza as, as a mentor.
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But-
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Patrick King: Mm-hmm
6:50
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: tell us what you do now, and then what was the
6:52
transition between Ray Hunt and that?
6:55
Patrick King: Yeah, so, so my time with Ray was obviously, you know, more on
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the Western horsemanship side of things.
7:00
Started lots and lots of young horses under saddle.
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And eventually in the area I lived in, that led me to dressage.
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I started having more dressage clients send me their horses, and then I got
7:11
the opportunity, as one often does when you work with young horses owners
7:16
who were maybe not quite confident riding their horses yet, right?
7:20
Once they had a basic foundation.
7:23
And so I got the opportunity, several of them would say, "Well, can you go
7:26
ride in this clinic with so and so?"
7:29
Ah.
7:29
In these dressage clinics.
7:30
And that really helped me to get into that.
7:32
And for, for a while before I met Ray and in my youth, I rode hunt seat.
7:37
More the follow the rail, walk, trot, walk, canter, walk,
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reverse sort of idea, you know?
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Mm-hmm.
7:42
And the pleasure shows and that sort of thing.
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But so I was always quite comfortable in, in breeches, as
7:48
most colt starters are not, right?
7:50
Most cowboys are not.
7:51
But I was alwaysâ¦
7:53
I used to joke that I was dressage by passion, but Western by function.
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Because I've always been one of those that wanted to know why do things work,
8:02
how do things work, what if we- What if we tweak it a little bit this way?
8:07
What's the horse's response going to be, and how does that communication happen?
8:11
And so that always sort of drew me to what I saw as dressage, classical dressage.
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But so that's, that's really for me where the, the interest was always
8:20
there, and the door got opened.
8:22
And ultimately, that led me to meeting someone who would
8:27
become a mentor, Mark Russell.
8:29
Rupert Isaacson: Ah, yes.
8:30
The late Mark Russell.
8:31
Patrick King: The late Mark Russell, absolutely.
8:33
And we didn't get to spend a whole lot of time together.
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We taught together a couple times.
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We-- I met him at a sort of a symposium that was put together,
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a very small, quiet, sort of an intimate symposium, where it was
8:47
where I first met Mark, and it was just, these things made so much sense.
8:51
What he was talking about made so much sense.
8:53
And it really opened my eyes to, oh, there's even more, right?
8:58
You know, again, coming from our own perspective, we learn
9:01
from where we are, right?
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And I think
9:04
Rupert Isaacson: that's- Just a quick aside, but for those listeners and, and
9:06
viewers who don't know Mark Russell, Mark Russell was sort of one of the
9:10
really early linkers of sort of, let's say everyday American riding,
9:16
both Western and English- Mm-hmm
9:17
with the classical greats.
9:19
He was one of the first guys to start going over to Portugal and
9:23
then putting it all together.
9:24
Mm-hmm.
9:24
And then, and then sadly, very sadly, after he wrote a few books, he got
9:28
killed in a, in a, in an accident during a clinic with a young horse in Texas.
9:32
Mm-hmm.
9:33
And I'd say America lost, you know, the possibility for a
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really great future mentor there.
9:39
But if you have a chance- Yeah â¦ to check out his books, you should.
9:41
Okay, that's just the aside.
9:42
Sorry, go, go on.
9:43
Patrick King: And, and that's-- the, those, the books are fantastic.
9:46
The videos that are out there are fantastic.
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There's some videos on YouTube as well.
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I definitely recommend them.
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I share them with my students all the time.
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Yeah, they're, they're really great.
9:54
But yeah, so Mark, Mark really got me thinking even deeper.
9:58
You know, it was up u- up to that point, it was, okay, we control the feet.
10:02
We get to the mind through the feet.
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You know, that was-- that's a big thing from Ray, get to
10:07
the mind through the feet, and understanding where the feet are.
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And Mark helped me realize The feet are an extension of the spine, and that's
10:17
all part of the nervous system, right?
10:19
Like, can we dig in there a little bit deeper?
10:22
But one of the things that Mark talked about in some of our conversations
10:27
together is that he wanted to go back to Portugal, and he said, "You know, Nuno's
10:31
not around anymore, but Luis ValenÃ§a would be somebody that I would go to visit."
10:37
And so that name got kind of, you know, filed away in the back of my
10:40
mind, and that's what eventually led me to going and, and working with
10:45
SeÃ±or Luis and the ValenÃ§a family.
10:47
And I've gone back several times and, and can't wait for the
10:50
next opportunity to do that.
10:52
But yeah.
10:52
And, and on the way, I've found lots of mentors, lots of teachers lots
10:59
of friends across all disciplines.
11:02
And SeÃ±or Luis organized the opportunity for me to become a short-term
11:07
student at the Royal School in Spain.
11:10
So I've gone there and ridden a few times in short courses.
11:13
And it'sâ¦
11:14
like I say, I wanna know why.
11:16
I wanna know how things work underneath for both the self-development side
11:21
of things and helping to develop the horse, as well as helping to
11:25
share that with others, right?
11:27
Right.
11:27
Rupert Isaacson: So that's really always been with that.
11:28
So here's, here's my, here's my challenge question I'm just gonna throw out.
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Why bother with all of that?
11:32
Like, what's, what's the point?
11:35
And I'm playing devil's advocate because- Mm-hmm â¦ obviously
11:38
we share the same passion.
11:39
Mm-hmm.
11:39
But I think the question is worth posing.
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Like, what is the intrinsic value of diving up one's own bottom to that
11:47
degree, and up the horse's bottom too?
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You know, hopefully, you know.
11:51
Patrick King: Right.
11:52
Rupert Isaacson: Joke, but, you know, what's the point of
11:54
nerding out to that degree?
11:57
How does it make the world a better place?
11:59
Why, why, why even, why even start the endeavor?
12:06
Patrick King: To find what's real
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Rupert Isaacson: Go on
12:09
â¦ Patrick King: rather than what's superficial
12:13
And maybe it's, maybe it's from part of my early experience with horses.
12:21
I remember my first time showing a horse.
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I was like 12, I think, or something like that.
12:28
And I was just thrown on a, on a, not literally thrown on a horse, but I was
12:31
put on a horse that a young quarter horse.
12:35
And I was going in a walk trot class, you know, 11, 12-year-old Patrick on this,
12:40
on this horse that was basically a catch ride, belonged to our farrier's wife.
12:45
And it was a very
12:52
Very barbarically trained Western pleasure horse, as many of them are.
12:59
I often refer to it as Western displeasure, so I hope that doesn't
13:02
piss off any of your listeners, but,
13:04
Rupert Isaacson: Huge, 87 angry comments.
13:06
Cool.
13:06
Yeah.
13:07
Patrick King: Exactly.
13:08
Send your hate mail to office@pkhorsemanship.com.
13:12
But very barbarically trained, very,
13:17
you do what I say, kind of a, you know, really pushed and pulled
13:21
and, and that sort of thing.
13:23
And the-
13:24
Rupert Isaacson: Perhaps not much pleasure involved.
13:25
Yeah.
13:25
Patrick King: There's not much ple- which is why I refer
13:27
to it as displeasure, right?
13:28
Mm-hmm.
13:29
But the horse, I mean, she wasâ¦
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I didn't know much.
13:33
Looking back, she was a saint to even tolerate me flopping around up there.
13:37
But where I grew up showing horses was next to a standard bred trotting track.
13:44
What I was told by the owner of this horse was, "You know, if she
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gets too fast, jerk on the reins, squeeze her with your spurs."
13:54
Okay?
13:54
This was back in the days when, when the spur stop thing was really,
13:58
like, in its in its grand original excitement that folks were teaching
14:05
Rupert Isaacson: horses.
14:05
Which is not a thing in the English world at all, so you- Exactly
14:08
might a little bit just want to explain what a spur stop is.
14:09
Yeah.
14:09
Patrick King: Yeah.
14:10
So the idea of the spur stop is the harder you squeeze with your spurs,
14:12
the slower they go, essentially through the contraction of the abs
14:16
and just really slowing them down.
14:18
And if they don't slow down, then you beat up on them with the bridle, basically
14:22
to get them to submit and slow down.
14:25
But so it was, you know- Mm-hmm â¦ pick up on the reins, jerk on the
14:30
reins, squeeze her with your spurs.
14:31
That'll slow her down.
14:33
And she said, "And if that doesn't work, growl at her."
14:38
Well, this horse hadn't seen standardbreds racing across, around the track, and
14:44
so we went into a, a second class, and we were supposed to be loping along
14:49
the rail, and the mare saw that and got fast, and I went to slow her down.
14:54
Here's, here's now a concerned prey animal getting jabbed
14:59
with these gut hooks inside-
15:01
Rupert Isaacson: And you tried to follow instructions, right.
15:02
Yeah
15:02
â¦ Patrick King: exactly, and I'm just, you know, yeah, 12-year-old me is doing what I
15:05
was told to do because I didn't know, you know, my ass from my elbow at that point.
15:10
And so I'm gouging with the spurs, and I'm jerking with the bridle,
15:14
and I'm growling because that's what I was told to do, right?
15:18
And Mother Nature will always win.
15:20
I believe it.
15:20
In case anybody's wondering, Mother Nature will always win.
15:23
Yeah.
15:24
And so the, it, it took, I don't know, there was five or six people jumped
15:29
into the arena to catch young me on this horse, you know, and that sort of thing.
15:33
And, and she was probably barely loping around, but it was out of control for
15:38
what it was supposed to be, right?
15:39
But so I, I think that's one of those things and, and then a short
15:45
while after, my father acquired a horse that was pretty aggressive.
15:49
He was part of that industry.
15:51
The horse was, was part of that industry and, and really had a lot of
15:56
mental challenges as a result of it.
15:59
Which breed was this, sorry?
15:59
The Western pleasure horses.
16:02
And the horse was intelligent and maybe I would say
16:07
intelligent to his own detriment.
16:10
Mm-hmm.
16:10
And he realized that his life was not fair, and he would self-mutilate.
16:15
He would rip his flanks open with his teeth.
16:18
He w- I mean, just really beat himself up pretty bad.
16:21
Mm.
16:22
And and the answer from everyone locally in, in the industry there was, you
16:27
know, "Just get harder, get firmer."
16:29
I remember at one point-
16:30
Rupert Isaacson: But if he would do that, I mean, if he would self-mutilate,
16:31
that, what would trigger that?
16:34
Patrick King: Oh, I mean, it would seem like if the wind changed
16:36
direction, he thought it was his
16:38
Rupert Isaacson: fault.
16:38
It wasn't necessarily something that the rider did or didn't
16:40
Patrick King: do?
16:40
No, you could see him.
16:41
He would do it, he would do it out in the paddock even.
16:43
Okay.
16:44
If things were upsetting to him, he would, he would grab his knee
16:48
with his mouth and try to run.
16:51
Rupert Isaacson: And he wasn't a stallion, he was a gelding?
16:53
Patrick King: He was a gelding.
16:54
Mm-hmm, exactly.
16:55
Thank goodness.
16:56
Very stallion-like tendencies in that regard.
16:59
A machine if you'd get him in the show ring.
17:01
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
17:01
Patrick King: Except if you were in hand.
17:03
We did the halter, the showmanship business, and he would, he would bite.
17:06
Oh, my goodness- Try to eat you â¦ would this horse bite.
17:08
Yeah, try to eat you and, and the advice at one point was to put,
17:12
it's, it's crazy to even think back on it, was to put thumbtacks inside
17:18
your gloves, and if he went to bite, punch him with the thumbtacks.
17:24
Let me tell you how many times I did that.
17:27
One.
17:27
And I came out with shreds of leather and, and bloody backs of my hands.
17:34
But again, at that time I didn't know any different.
17:37
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
17:37
Patrick King: Right?
17:38
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:39
Patrick King: So there was one moment when he got me cornered.
17:42
He was pretty sure I was five minutes late for dinner, and he got me cornered
17:45
in the back of a stall, and the hind feet, both hind feet grazed the sides
17:51
of my ears against the stall wall
17:56
I think I was 14 maybe at that point.
17:59
And like any macho 14-year-old boy, curled in a ball and cried.
18:05
Rupert Isaacson: Had to prove yourself.
18:05
Patrick King: And-
18:06
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
18:06
Patrick King: Yeah.
18:07
Right?
18:07
Exactly.
18:08
Yeah, that's pretty standard.
18:09
You know, and, and snuck out of the stall while he was eating his dinner, you know.
18:13
And, and that was really the moment that it was, "I've gotta
18:17
find something that's more real.
18:19
If I'm, if I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna live through this, I can't take the advice
18:24
of, of what everybody locally is giving.
18:26
I can't take that.
18:27
I've gotta seek something more."
18:29
Rupert Isaacson: Was that your dad who gave you that advice
18:31
or was that somebody else?
18:33
Patrick King: It was everyone.
18:34
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
18:34
Patrick King: Basically.
18:35
Everyone there.
18:36
And
18:36
Rupert Isaacson: w- when they observed that it didn't work was there a plan B?
18:41
Patrick King: Harder.
18:42
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
18:44
Patrick King: Yeah.
18:44
Rupert Isaacson: H- here's a question.
18:45
Again, a lot of people listen to this from all over the world.
18:48
They won't necessarily know what Western pleasure is.
18:50
Mm-hmm.
18:50
I, when I picture Western pleasure, I picture people in an arena in a show
18:55
ring with the horse's head very low-
18:57
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
18:58
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: in fancy Western gear.
18:59
Often the gear is quite eye-catching.
19:04
And,
19:05
Patrick King: Disco ball-ish.
19:06
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sort of.
19:07
Exactly.
19:07
So lots of bling and lots of like breeches with fire on them and things.
19:12
And, but the horse, soft, low, more or less touching the
19:20
ground a bit with his nose.
19:22
Now, when you see that from the outside, if you didn't know anything
19:26
about it, you'd say, "Well, that looks, you know, quite relaxed."
19:30
How is that-
19:33
And it's not my world at all.
19:35
Mm.
19:35
How is brutality connected with that?
19:39
Like, why, when, and how, how might it work that brutality could get that effect?
19:47
I'm actually quite intrigued.
19:49
Patrick King: There's a big difference between submission and relaxation.
19:55
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
19:56
Patrick King: Just like there's a difference between
19:58
education and subjugation
20:02
Rupert Isaacson: And again, to play devil's advocate for the Western pleasure
20:04
industry, can we presume that there are people within there, lots of people in
20:07
there who are not being so brutal and who are, who are doing it very nicely?
20:11
Patrick King: Certainly.
20:11
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
20:11
Patrick King: Certainly.
20:12
Absolutely.
20:13
Absolutely.
20:13
Yeah, and I, and I, I know I painted it like a, a really nasty
20:17
Rupert Isaacson: sort of thing.
20:18
But is, is it one of thoseâ¦
20:18
Is it a bit like, I mean, you know, y- you mentioned before we hit the record button
20:23
that your stepmom, stepmom, wasn't it?
20:25
Mm-hmm.
20:25
Was a five-gaited saddle seat shower.
20:28
Mm-hmm.
20:29
And I think many of us who's lived in the USA for a long time know that that can be
20:33
an absolute animal rights can of worms.
20:35
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
20:36
And this was certainly, you know, in, in times much prior
20:39
to that, and then when, when-
20:40
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
20:41
â¦ Patrick King: she was in my life we had Arabians.
20:44
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
20:44
Patrick King: But yeah, it's, you know, the, the origin-
20:47
Rupert Isaacson: It's still a problem for people who are using pain to make the
20:48
horses do the big gaits and all of that.
20:50
And like it's- Right â¦ it's a problem to the degree that I know
20:54
some people within the Humane Society who have been campaigning for
20:57
decades trying to get changes and-
20:59
Patrick King: Absolutely
21:00
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: can't for various reasons.
21:01
A lot of money involved.
21:02
But yeah, you can sort of see logically how force could get you
21:06
something exaggerated in a movement.
21:08
Mm.
21:09
But it's hard to see, but I guess y- you're saying it's a submission.
21:12
Does it mean then that there are certain horses that are put through that process
21:17
of submission who don't make it, and then they don't become Western pleasure
21:21
horses, they go on to do something else?
21:23
Patrick King: Absolutely.
21:23
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
21:23
Patrick King: Y- y- yes.
21:25
Yeah, they would go on to do something else, and, and oftentimes
21:28
it's because they can't get slow enough or low enough or- Right
21:32
whatever in the posture.
21:33
The, the
21:33
Rupert Isaacson: origin- But it's a relatively extreme thing.
21:34
You, you, when you look at it, you go, "Sure, not every horse
21:37
is gonna do that," you know?
21:39
Just physically-
21:39
Patrick King: Right
21:40
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
21:40
Patrick King: Exactly.
21:41
Exactly.
21:42
And-
21:45
I don't, I don't want to get too much hate mail going on here, but originally
21:49
the idea of the Western pleasure classes w- was more or less along the lines of
21:55
if you think of what you're doing when you're going out checking fence with
21:58
a ranch horse all day, you want them to follow along the fence rail, right?
22:04
Loose rein.
22:04
Nice and steady kind of a thing.
22:06
Exactly.
22:07
Steady, relaxed, can we go along?
22:09
And over time, much like the saddle seat ideas, over time
22:15
become more stylized, right?
22:18
Saddle seat and Western pleasure at this point are certainly
22:20
disciplines built on style and fashion, not necessarily on function.
22:26
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
22:26
Patrick King: Right?
22:27
And I, I feel like most of the time when style and fashion gets involved
22:33
the horse unfortunately becomes a tool-
22:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
22:37
â¦ Patrick King: to that endeavor
22:38
Rupert Isaacson: rather than the point of- And style and fashion also usually
22:40
mean that quite a lot of money's gotten involved at that point, otherwise it
22:42
doesn't become a style and a fashion.
22:44
Patrick King: Right.
22:45
It,
22:45
Rupert Isaacson: it remains people just riding to church on Sunday.
22:49
Mm-hmm.
22:49
Exactly.
22:50
But then when you start betting on how they arrive at church on Sunday, then it-
22:53
Patrick King: That's it.
22:54
That's it.
22:55
Right.
22:55
Exa- And that's where, you know, saddle seat was originally.
22:57
It was- Yeah â¦ it was to show your horse off on Sunday.
23:00
Yeah.
23:00
Going to town, right?
23:01
It was how, how fancy can they look?
23:03
And, and I, I again, I know I'm sounding like I'm just talking negative
23:07
on both of those disciplines, and I don't necessarily mean it to be that.
23:10
I, I bring it up only, I guess, to say that the part of the industry
23:15
I came from originally, I learned how to make a thing happen.
23:19
I learned how to force a horse.
23:20
Rupert Isaacson: And it's worth talking about these things because
23:22
let's say Western pleasure had a, had a beginning in a pleasurable ride-
23:29
Mm-hmm â¦ while out there doing things that you kind of have to do.
23:33
Mm-hmm.
23:33
And let's say that the saddle seat had a beginning in probably the horse riding
23:41
the first five miles to town, probably pretty relaxed and on a loose rein.
23:46
Certainly not with stacked up shoes- Mm-hmm â¦ certainly not with anything
23:49
like that- Mm-hmm â¦ because he would just break down halfway, halfway there.
23:52
Patrick King: He, he wouldn't make it to town.
23:53
Yeah, exactly.
23:54
Rupert Isaacson: It can only exist in an arena, right?
23:56
That, an artificial environment.
23:57
Mm-hmm.
23:57
And then perhaps the last 100 yards as he arrived at church,
24:02
you'd pick him up and ask him for the fancy thing, and everyone- Yep
24:05
would go, "Whoa," you know, "Farmer Jones has got his horse going well."
24:08
And then, you know- Exactly â¦ Farmer Smith would go, "Ooh, maybe
24:10
I can do better," you know?
24:11
And, Yeah â¦ but nonetheless, the horse had a, you know, a functional
24:15
life where, where, It wasn't being ridden that way all the time.
24:19
Mm-hmm.
24:19
And then over, and, and, and anyone who's gonna decry what we're
24:25
saying, saying, "Well, the dressage people do the same," guess what?
24:28
You're right.
24:29
Patrick King: Yeah.
24:29
Yeah.
24:30
You're right.
24:30
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
24:30
You're right, you're right.
24:31
Absolutely.
24:32
Because dressage came out of something very practical.
24:35
Yes.
24:36
And it's now being taken, in some cases, not every case, but in some
24:39
niches- But the most visible niches into something very stylized.
24:45
Mm-hmm.
24:46
And that hasn't necessarily been a good thing.
24:52
Right â¦ but is dressage itself a bad thing?
24:55
No.
24:56
And is-
24:57
Patrick King: Right
24:57
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: imagine if everybody did yoga competitively suddenly, and everyone
25:01
would be- Exactly â¦ because of yoga.
25:03
Patrick King: Exactly.
25:04
Rupert Isaacson: The very thing that we're supposed to do to keep us out of hospital
25:07
would put us- Yes â¦ in hospital.
25:08
Yes.
25:08
Absolutely.
25:08
So it's that thing, I think, where any, any idea that becomes, is taken too far-
25:13
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
25:13
Rupert Isaacson: becomes the antithesis of itself, becomes the opposite
25:16
of itself, and I think we've seen that- Totally â¦ happen in so many
25:19
disciplines e- with e- you know, equestrianism that, Yeah â¦ I don't-
25:22
Patrick King: Well, and how many disciplines right now still
25:24
exist because of practicality?
25:26
How many horses exist because of practicality?
25:30
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
25:31
Indeed, indeed.
25:31
Patrick King: They don't, you know?
25:32
It's, I'm not saying the num- the number's not zero, but it's low, right?
25:37
Rupert Isaacson: Interestingly, yeah.
25:38
It's low.
25:38
I mean, again, this, so this is how I got into dressage.
25:41
So I wasn't interested really particularly.
25:43
I mean, I, I was interested in the s- in the way that, you know,
25:45
we're curious as, as horse people.
25:47
Mm-hmm.
25:47
But my background was very much hunting, jumping, eventing-
25:50
Patrick King: Mm
25:51
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and having fun.
25:52
And then, you may know this I had an autistic child who didn't speak.
25:58
Uh-huh.
25:58
And by hook and by crook, I found myself with him in the saddle in front of me.
26:04
And I found that when the horse was in soft collection, and I didn't
26:08
know much about soft collection then.
26:09
Oddly enough, I knew about how to collect a horse from jumping, and I knew about how
26:13
to collect a horse from hunting hounds.
26:15
Because if you are the assistant to the huntsman, if you're the, what's called
26:18
the whipper in, you are the one- Uh-huh â¦ who's trying to make sure the pack stays
26:21
together, and if young hounds run off to do something they shouldn't do, you're
26:25
the one who has to go get them back.
26:26
So you're often leaning back a little bit in the saddle, riding one-handed
26:29
because you have your hunting whip.
26:31
It's a little bit like a, so you, you crack it to call the hounds to you.
26:35
So you have to have that hand free, so you're riding kind of
26:38
one-handed, and sometimes you lean back a little bit to sort of look,
26:41
oh, where, where's so-and-so?
26:43
And you, this thoroughbred off the track that you got given to do starts to collect
26:47
up because they, they start to follow your weight aid and learns the job.
26:51
And so, so that's really all I knew.
26:53
And so I would do that, and I would notice that when the horse went into that sort
26:57
of a canter with my child in front of me, he would speak, and he would speak a lot.
27:01
Mm.
27:02
And then I was like, "Oh, interesting.
27:04
All right.
27:04
Well, I'm going to keep doing this then."
27:06
Yeah.
27:07
And so I did, and because this then became really what I did, I, I literally lived in
27:12
the saddle with him for about three years, and eventually rode across this big chunk
27:15
of Mongolia with him, and so on and so on.
27:17
Oh, yeah,
27:17
Patrick King: I've heard you reference that.
27:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
27:19
And had crazy adventures with shamans and things.
27:21
All right.
27:22
But then we real- I thought, "Well, why does this work?"
27:26
Because by then we were doing it with lots of other kids, and it
27:28
was just working every single time.
27:32
Wow â¦ why, right?
27:33
So something's going on in the brain of the kid, something's going on
27:37
in the nervous system of the kid.
27:38
Who understands about brains and nervous systems?
27:41
Neuroscientists.
27:42
So I went to some different neuroscientists in different
27:44
universities, and I said, "Can you explain why this thing is working?"
27:48
And interestingly, I got pretty much the same answer from
27:50
everybody, which was, "Oh, yeah.
27:52
If you look at the video, Rupert, of, of what's going on there, you'll
27:55
notice that the child's hips are rocking in a gentle rhythm while
28:01
the horse is in this kind of rhythm.
28:03
And it's not just in the canter, it's also in some of the trot work and so on.
28:06
Mm-hmm.
28:06
And this makes them produce a hormone, and it's the same
28:11
hormone you produce and itâ¦
28:12
'Cause it feels good, right?
28:13
It feels good to ride a horse like that.
28:15
Why?
28:15
Why does it feel good?
28:16
It makes you produce this feel-good hormone.
28:19
The hormone's called oxytocin.
28:21
And we've got- Okay â¦ four main happy hormones.
28:24
So we've got, you know, dopamine, which is a little bit like,
28:27
"Ha-ha, I got it," or I'm inten- in anticipation of, of something.
28:31
Mm-hmm.
28:31
Then we have serotonin, you know, which is mostly produced in the gut and makes
28:35
us cheerful and functional, social.
28:37
And then we've got endorphins, which is the ah, after a workout or-
28:42
Mm-hmm â¦ chocolate or something.
28:43
And then we've got oxytocin, which is the queen.
28:46
And the reason, and, because that's about euphoria, that's the feeling.
28:50
Patrick King: Mm.
28:51
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
28:51
And usually with the feeling comes insights.
28:57
And nature, as you said, you can't fight nature.
28:59
Nature's always clever.
29:00
Nature always has a reason for things.
29:02
So it wants us to have this hormone a lot because- It's
29:11
not just a feel-good hormone.
29:12
It's not just a nervous system calming hormone.
29:15
It makes you communicate, and it's tied up with- Mm-hmm â¦ reproduction.
29:19
So if a, if a male and a female Homo sapien sapiens rock their hips in
29:24
rhythm together in certain situations, they're quite likely to produce a baby.
29:28
If they do out there in Africa, primordial you know, human life, you
29:33
fire a protein ball- Yeah â¦ down onto the ground, and every predator in
29:38
a half-hour radius goes, "Oh, lunch.
29:40
Thank you."
29:40
Mm.
29:41
And then the next 20 years is trying to meet all the challenges of bringing
29:46
this thing up, which is not quite as much fun as the making of the, the
29:50
20 minutes it took to make the thing.
29:52
20 minutes to 20 years.
29:53
And then, â¦ if one of the parents leaves, 'cause it's just too difficult,
29:58
the chances of survival for the offspring go down to zero- Mm â¦ more or less.
30:02
So you need a constant bond, bonding mechanism that makes
30:07
the, the two people strategize, constantly want to communicate.
30:11
When we strategize, because we're the speaking ape, which is one
30:14
thing we've got is the larynx-
30:15
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
30:16
Rupert Isaacson: um, we tend to become top predator, but only as
30:19
long as we keep communicating.
30:21
So they said, "Well, that's what's going on, Rupert."
30:24
And then in addition, you're doing all sorts of exploring up there and
30:28
playing games up there and doing like things like that, which causes the
30:32
brain to respond to what's called novel movement and produce a protein.
30:36
Patrick King: Oh.
30:36
Rupert Isaacson: And that protein is amino acid, a protein is amino acid, calledâ¦
30:40
It's got a four-letter acronym, BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
30:46
The brain- Mm â¦ producing more of itself.
30:48
And you get it in martial arts, you get it in anything you do in dance.
30:52
Y- When you cross, particularly when you cross the midline a lot.
30:55
Sport.
30:56
But you also get a lot of it with this.
30:58
And then you're balancing vestibular systems, so it gets like a double effect
31:02
which causes some other cells in the cerebellum to fire, which are called
31:07
Purkinje cells, named after a Czech dude called PurkynÄ who discovered them,
31:11
which among a bazillion other things, and all the neuroscientists listening
31:15
to me, "Well, you're oversimplifying."
31:16
It's like, yes, I am.
31:17
Yes, I am.
31:18
Patrick King: Right.
31:18
Rupert Isaacson: Because that's how you get information across it.
31:20
Yeah.
31:21
Exactly.
31:21
These Purkinje cells, among many things govern social skills.
31:24
So if you've, take someone who's got I-don't-wanna-communicate-ism- Auto,
31:29
the self, auto-ism Mm-hmm And you fill them with communication hormone,
31:34
nervous system calm you down-y hormone, and social skills brain cells in
31:40
the billions, you will see change.
31:42
And when, when this was explained, we're like, "Oh, okay, well then we can
31:45
re- we can replicate this," but then we need a way to show the horses that
31:50
are mostly donation therapy horses-
31:54
Patrick King: Mm
31:54
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: who come from whatever background, and usually come with all
31:58
kinds of aches and pains, and sometimes- Sure â¦ stories in their mind, too.
32:02
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
32:03
Rupert Isaacson: We've got to be able to bring them in an efficient way to
32:05
be able to do this, and that led me to say, "Well, okay, this is collection.
32:09
What is collection?
32:10
Collection is dressage."
32:11
Really, that's the dressing of the horse.
32:12
Mm.
32:12
So then I did probably what you did, what everyone else did, which is you
32:15
try and get dressage lessons from people, which don't work, because,
32:19
for reasons we could go into.
32:20
And then I realized, "Ah, the key's all in the in-hand work.
32:23
The key is in the work on the ground," great.
32:25
And that's how I found my way to the master of that, who's Luis Valenza, and-
32:29
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
32:29
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: he and his family taught me, and then we could go home and we could
32:31
replicate it with the therapy horses.
32:34
And then we sort of looked up and our therapy horses were piaffing, and
32:37
passaging, and tempi changing around.
32:40
And we're like, "Well, that wasn't our original intent."
32:43
But it's a very nice byproduct.
32:46
And- Right â¦ it, and for a horseman, it's a great nerd-out.
32:48
But we also realized that you, you, you r- could use this whole system to
32:52
rehab the horses that were coming in.
32:55
So then when I started looking at the sport dressage and seeing how the
32:59
same thing was being used to break horses, specifically if they were
33:03
being trained only from the saddle and always being made to work to the
33:07
maximum range of their movement and sort of wear out their cartilage- Mm-hmm
33:11
before they get old and break down, particularly the big warmbloods.
33:14
Like big dogs, you know, big people, they often, the spine often
33:17
breaks down a bit quicker than- Right â¦ with terriers or, you know.
33:20
Mm-hmm â¦ then you could see, oh gosh, there is a problem, because this very
33:25
thing that we have found can open up a child's world and rehab a horse in pain
33:31
and reverse age it can sadly, also, if taken to an extreme, do all the things
33:36
that you were talking about before.
33:38
Mm-hmm.
33:39
So, you know, we, we came in through this back door.
33:41
And w- w- when you were saying, "Do we use horses anymore practically?"
33:46
You could argue that in the therapy world, you absolutely do.
33:50
Patrick King: Yeah, for sure.
33:51
Rupert Isaacson: One of the few niches outside of- Mm-hmm â¦ cowboying
33:54
where the working horse still is, like, really a working horse.
33:59
Yeah.
33:59
But where y- you're dead right, for most of the time what we're using horses for
34:03
is simply a personal human endeavor.
34:07
Patrick King: Right.
34:07
Want versus need for- Indeed â¦ for the majority of it.
34:10
Mm-hmm.
34:10
Indeed.
34:10
Exactly.
34:11
Yeah.
34:13
Rupert Isaacson: So with that in mind, there are you tr- you know,
34:19
helping people who are in the want versus need world with horses.
34:23
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
34:23
Rupert Isaacson: Trying to make it not what you just described from-
34:27
Patrick King: Right.
34:27
Exactly.
34:28
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
34:28
Patrick King: Yeah Yeah.
34:29
Yeah.
34:29
And that's, you know, one of the things that Mark Russell that I heard
34:32
him say several times is, you know, "Dressage should be for the horse,
34:38
the horse should not be for dressage."
34:39
Mm.
34:40
Right?
34:40
It's like can we, can we use the dressage, the dressing of the horse, can we use
34:46
that to help the horse improve, you know?
34:48
Mm.
34:48
Better balance feels better.
34:50
Better posture feels better.
34:51
Better movement feels better.
34:53
Sometimes we have to unlock compensatory patterns, and past stories, and
34:58
associations, and things like that to find that, but it should feel good.
35:05
It should feel better for the horse.
35:07
It should be, in itself, it should be the reward or the release, you know?
35:12
If, if we present it in that way, and if we're doing it with,
35:18
with the horse in mind, right?
35:20
And hey, ribbons are nice.
35:22
Ribbons are great, right?
35:24
But if you get that ribbon at the expense of the horse-
35:29
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah
35:29
â¦ Patrick King: that's, that's not my dressage.
35:32
To quote Anna Blake in a podcast interview I did with her, she
35:35
said, "That's not my dressage."
35:37
And I c- I love that, that thought, you know?
35:40
Rupert Isaacson: It's w- it's worth thinking about this because, you
35:43
know, I, you go out and clinic a lot, I go out and clinic a lot.
35:45
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
35:46
Rupert Isaacson: And it used to be, I'd say up until about two years
35:48
ago people would regard one a little bit with suspicion if you didn't
35:54
have, particularly in America, if you didn't have a show record.
35:57
Patrick King: Yes.
35:58
Rupert Isaacson: And I haven't shown a horse since I was in my 30s and,
36:01
you know- Mm-hmm â¦ and it wasn't in dressage, it was at wall and jumping.
36:04
And I think I've rode in one dressage show once, you know, and it wasn't
36:09
very g- I didn't do very well.
36:10
So now it seems to have shifted.
36:14
It's really interesting.
36:15
Uh-huh.
36:15
I'd say in the last two years it's almost gotten to the point
36:19
where people now regard you with suspicion if you are very much-
36:23
in the show world.
36:23
Patrick King: Right
36:24
Rupert Isaacson: Unless you're, like, really in the belly of the
36:26
beast in Wellington or something.
36:28
Exactly â¦ and even there I feel there's a kind of growing awareness
36:32
that, hold on, this is pointless.
36:38
Like, this is actually grandly pointless.
36:41
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
36:42
Rupert Isaacson: Unless we're doing it for the practice of an art.
36:48
But if we're doing it for the practice of an art, which is inherently
36:51
joyful, it, not every moment maybe, but if you're writing a book, if
36:55
you're painting a picture, it's, it's inherently a joyful thing.
36:58
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
36:58
Rupert Isaacson: Making music.
37:00
We can agree that writing's an art.
37:01
If that's what we're doing, then art defies competition.
37:05
You can have an art competition, sure.
37:08
Patrick King: Sure.
37:08
Of course.
37:08
Rupert Isaacson: You can win a prize for literature orâ¦
37:10
But I- Mm-hmm â¦ you know, I, you and I can read that book and go, "Well, actually
37:13
I thought that other book was better."
37:16
And when they said, "Well, Patrick, what do you mean by that book was better?"
37:18
You say, "Well, it just spoke to me more."
37:21
Patrick King: Yes.
37:22
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
37:22
I just had an emotional reaction.
37:24
I'm not saying this other book is bad, it just didn't- Mm-hmm â¦ light
37:27
my fire in the way that that book that won no prize did.
37:30
Patrick King: Exactly.
37:31
Rupert Isaacson: Yet with FEI we've tried to standardize what a book should be,
37:36
and that's kind of weird given that it's supposed to be- Yeah â¦ an art, you know?
37:40
Yeah.
37:40
So you must deal with this all the time because your, your clients
37:44
are coming partly from that world.
37:47
How do you help people navigate this rather ambiguous terrain?
37:53
Patrick King: It's interesting because I hear people talk about that, and
37:55
sometimes I think, "Well, I, I don't even know what they're talking about."
37:58
Obviously I know what they're talking about, butâ¦
38:01
So I, I stopped competing, think I was about 20 when I stopped competing.
38:07
And because I was focused on training and teaching and learning, and, you
38:11
know, as much as I love to teach, I am y- you, you, if you see me teaching, you'd
38:16
be sure that that's my happiest place.
38:18
This, that's my second happiest place.
38:21
My happiest place is learning.
38:23
Mm.
38:23
I'm, I'm such a nerd.
38:24
I, I would, you know, between teaching and learning, those are my two favorite
38:28
things on the planet, for sure.
38:30
But so I stopped competing when I was around 20 years old.
38:34
And Julio Mendoza, I don't know if you know who he is.
38:39
He, he repres- Can
38:40
Rupert Isaacson: you explain to the lads listening who, who-
38:42
Patrick King: Mm-hmm â¦ that person is?
38:43
So Julio is from Ecuador.
38:45
He represented Ecuador in the Paris Olympics.
38:49
He's right now over in Aachen at at the Dressage World Championships competing.
38:54
He and I are friends.
38:55
I had some lessons on his horses years ago, and fantastic, and I still
39:00
ride with him as often as possible, which is not very often recently.
39:04
But-
39:07
He made a comment to me many years ago.
39:09
He said, "You know, the people that need what-- that really need, like
39:14
capital N need, what you're sharing won't hear it until you have your
39:21
medals, your dressage medals."
39:25
In other words, competitive experience, just like what you're saying.
39:29
And I thought, "My schedule's so busy, doesn't matter.
39:32
Doesn't matter."
39:33
Like, you know, whatever.
39:35
But that always lived in the back of my mind, right?
39:39
And then I got the opportunity to spend some time with Charles
39:42
de Kunffy, riding with him.
39:45
A classical legend, right?
39:49
And I had a couple horses in training that I thought, "Well, I've gotâ¦"
39:55
Where I live in Virginia, 10 minutes down the road, we have one of the nicest
39:58
show facilities on the East Coast.
40:00
Dressage is there all the time.
40:02
And I had these two horses, I thought, "You know, I could-- I might
40:05
think about going and competing.
40:07
I think I could do this."
40:08
You know?
40:09
And I talked to Charles about it, and I said, "But, you know, my problem with
40:12
it at this point is, yeah, I would love to, to go in there and do that just
40:17
as a g- personal development, right?
40:19
As another test."
40:20
I said, "But, you know, I don't think I would think twice about it if the horse
40:24
needed me to take a little detour and work on something else as part of the test."
40:28
Obviously, you wouldn't be rude enough to do something like that.
40:32
But the, you know, the, the mindset in the back of my mind was like,
40:35
"Well, the test is secondary.
40:36
The horse is primary."
40:39
And I was almost expecting Charles to say, "Yeah, you don't,
40:42
you don't need to do that."
40:43
And he said, "That's how you know you're ready.
40:47
It's time to do it."
40:48
And I thought, "Oh, damn.
40:49
All right.
40:50
Well, now I've got no excuse."
40:52
And so I earned the bronze medal, and I earned the silver
40:55
medal over just a couple shows.
40:59
And so now I've got the, you know, some of the, the chops, some of
41:02
the experience in the show arena.
41:05
And even with that, I look at it like, well, you know, those, those weren't
41:10
the best rides- Mm â¦ that I had.
41:12
They felt fine.
41:13
They felt good.
41:14
I was pleased with the horse.
41:15
There were moments where I was not quite pleased with myself and myâ¦
41:18
You know, just as, as you go, when you look back at a dressage
41:21
test, you think, "Oh, I could have prepared for this a little better.
41:23
I could have prepared for that a little better.
41:25
He could have been a little more focused or soft or, or whatever."
41:28
So I've got then the experience in the show pen, and I've found I do enjoy it.
41:35
I do very, very little of it but I enjoy it, again, for the
41:39
self-development side of things.
41:41
Mm.
41:41
It's the, okay, if I've got the whole length of the arena to prepare my
41:46
horse's body for a canter transition, is that the same as canter at E?
41:54
I can make up all sorts of stories on, "Oh, the wind was
41:57
blowing a little too much.
41:58
There's a squirrel on the fence post.
42:00
I need a little more feel on this side."
42:03
Can I get him ready by this certain point, right?
42:06
But can I do it with the horse in mind?
42:08
Can I do it without sacrificing everything?
42:10
Can we be so prepared together- Mm â¦ that we are practically one in the same?
42:19
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
42:19
Patrick King: And that's how I view the dressage test.
42:22
Rupert Isaacson: No, I w- I, I'm with you there, and I've
42:24
got nothing against the tests.
42:25
So- Mm â¦ for example, we actually use them when we're training at home.
42:29
Okay.
42:29
Because they can give you some my wife in particular does.
42:33
They can give you just a really nice roadmap to say, Yes â¦ okay, let's, let's
42:38
not have to make it all up as we go along.
42:40
Let's, you know.
42:40
Mm-hmm.
42:41
And/or from time to time, let's check in and see where are we with this.
42:45
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
42:45
Rupert Isaacson: But there's a difference between doing that under
42:47
pressure and not under pressure.
42:48
And so something that I learned, for example, with myself very early,
42:52
and this was actually with jumping, was because I felt pressure in the
42:57
show ring, I would tend to ride-
42:59
Patrick King: Mm
42:59
Rupert Isaacson: more pressured.
43:00
And I wouldn't- Mm â¦ really have much choice in the matter, because you feel
43:03
what you feel, and your- Yes â¦ body will simply, your nervous system
43:07
will reflect your emotional state.
43:10
So you can't say to somebody, "Relax."
43:12
There are people who are inherently- â¦ temperamentally more relaxed in
43:17
certain conditions than others.
43:19
So it's interesting.
43:19
Mm-hmm.
43:19
I'm quite cool under fire.
43:21
I've had to learn to be, because I hadâ¦
43:24
I grew up in Hunt Field, for one thing, in, in England- Mm â¦ which
43:26
is quite, it, it's an extreme way to ride in c- in certain ways,
43:33
in t- Mm â¦ in terms of danger.
43:35
But also in t- human rights work and that sort of thing in Africa, and da, da, da.
43:38
That's right.
43:39
That kind of thing weirdly, I can be gâ¦
43:41
When I go into, when I was finding, when I was going into the arena, I
43:45
was feeling a certain kind of fear.
43:47
Mm.
43:48
And that fear had no option but to translate itself to the horse.
43:52
So I won ribbons sometimes.
43:54
Sometimes I did better than that.
43:57
Sometimes I did worse.
43:58
But I realized that even when I won, I didn't enjoy it.
44:03
And I'm not so sure- Mm-hmm, yeah â¦ the horse had a great ride under me.
44:06
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
44:06
Rupert Isaacson: However, I can look at my wife riding when she can go and
44:09
show, and the horse and she are having a wonderful time, because temperamentally
44:14
she's coming much more from where you're coming from, and what you were describing.
44:17
Mm-hmm.
44:18
And because she's not feeling that, she's not transmitting that to the horse.
44:22
So then you think, "Okay, well, then what do you do with the
44:25
rider who's a bit more like me?"
44:26
And you say, "Well, that's not a pro-" 'cause I'm more
44:28
like the autistic kid, right?
44:29
Okay, yeah â¦ the, then it's, then, well, let's just do that
44:32
same test, but not under pressure.
44:34
Patrick King: Not under pressure, exactly.
44:36
Rupert Isaacson: Let's change the environment of that test.
44:37
Patrick King: Exactly.
44:38
Rupert Isaacson: Because the horse-
44:38
Patrick King: And that I think is a, is a big shift in the idea of testing your
44:43
training versus training for the test.
44:47
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
44:47
Patrick King: And that's what we see a lot, not, I, I, I feel like
44:52
sometimes I talk in generalities, and this is one disc- one interview where,
44:56
you know, talking about different disciplines and industries and,
44:58
but, but what we do see largely in competitive dressage is training the
45:04
tests rather than testing the training.
45:07
Mm.
45:07
Or maybe we should say the dressage that we see as the problem That's the
45:14
dressage that is training for the test
45:17
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: that's, that's a v- you've made a very good point there.
45:19
So, we live in Spain and Germany, and, Okay â¦ so I'm talking to you from
45:23
Germany right now, but w- week after next we'll be back down in Spain.
45:27
In the area of Spain that we live in, Doma Vaquera, which is what people
45:30
call working equitation- Mm-hmm â¦ is done to a very high level, so people
45:35
are piaffing and passaging and tempi changing around while they're doing it.
45:38
And it's kind of done mostly at a village level with people having a
45:45
beer on a Saturday night, and they do it kind of in the town square and
45:49
in the bullring, and it's- Mm-hmm
45:52
they're hanging out with their mates, and families are hanging
45:54
out together, and it's a sort of bit of a celebration of culture.
45:58
And then up here in Germany you know, I trained horses and trained people
46:02
up here for about eight years, and one of the things that you notice is that,
46:08
and, and I've noticed this in the US with the dressage folks, is that the,
46:12
the, the ride is often antagonistic between the horse and the rider.
46:16
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
46:17
Rupert Isaacson: Meaning that the rider's never satisfied.
46:19
The horse-
46:20
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
46:20
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: is always a little bit, "Oh, shit, I'm not
46:23
quite doing what Mom or Dad want."
46:26
Yep.
46:26
There's a lot of kind of or a sort of- Mm-hmm â¦ frustration.
46:29
And then when you ask someone, "Well, how'd you enjoy that ride?"
46:32
Just, and th- they say, "Well, I didn't enjoy it, because it should've been
46:35
this, and it could've been that."
46:36
And, and then it begs the question, well, why the fuck are you doing it, you know?
46:39
Right.
46:41
"Well, I'm doing it because I want to compete, and da, da, da, da, da."
46:44
I said, "Well, yeah."
46:45
It's
46:46
Patrick King: my happy place, and you see them up there.
46:48
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
46:48
And it's like, "You don't look very happy."
46:50
You know?
46:50
And "Yes, I am."
46:52
I'm like, "Well, are you?
46:53
I don'tâ¦
46:53
Well, okay, fine.
46:54
If you say you are, you say you are.
46:55
But-"
46:55
Patrick King: Right
46:56
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: your, your, your pony looks a little bit stressed."
46:59
And y- we all know, though, that this is, again, the problem with
47:03
doing a, a test under pressure, meaning in front of a judge.
47:06
Mm-hmm.
47:06
The judge wants to see what the judge wants to see.
47:08
Patrick King: Sure.
47:08
Rupert Isaacson: The, if you h- don't ride for that judge, well,
47:11
you're not gonna do very well.
47:13
If you don't show up on the horse that the judge wants to see, which is probably
47:18
the fancier end of the Warmbloods- Sure â¦ through a accident of history,
47:22
because all the other countries were too lazy to write rules for the Olympic
47:26
Committee back in the 1890s, and the Germans said, "Well, we like rules."
47:30
Patrick King: Yep,
47:30
Rupert Isaacson: sign
47:30
Patrick King: us up.
47:31
Rupert Isaacson: And everyone breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Oh, good.
47:33
Let the Germans do it, then."
47:34
Patrick King: Let somebody else take it.
47:36
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
47:37
Rupert Isaacson: Right, right.
47:37
So the Germans wrote the rules for the horse that they knew, and so if you, if-
47:40
Yeah â¦ if the Portuguese had written the rules, we would all be riding Lusitanos.
47:43
As you know, if you followed any of my work, I'm an autism dad and we have
47:48
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47:55
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48:18
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48:21
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48:22
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48:23
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48:28
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48:42
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48:46
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49:02
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49:07
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49:23
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49:28
live their best life, to live free, ride free, see what happens.
49:32
But-
49:33
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
49:33
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: so now you have to ride the horse they want to see in a way
49:37
that looks da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
49:38
Mm-hmm.
49:40
Rather than saying, "Well, I could go home," and then you and me, Patrick,
49:44
we could hang out by the arena and say, "Well, look, let's take this test
49:48
and see what might be best for theâ¦
49:51
What, how does the horse maybe want to express itself in this test?"
49:54
Mm-hmm.
49:54
And how does the human want to express themself in this test?
49:57
Exactly.
49:57
And then how does this horse-human combo?
50:00
So maybe it's not gonna look as forward.
50:02
Maybe it's going to- Right â¦ look slower.
50:04
Maybe it's going to look- Mm-hmm â¦ and a judge might say, "Well, sorry, but
50:09
I want to see something different."
50:10
But in that non-pressure-ful situation, it wouldn't matter.
50:13
It only matters- Right â¦ under that pressure, yeah, yeah.
50:15
Patrick King: Yep, yep.
50:17
Absolutely.
50:18
Yeah.
50:18
And there's, there's a lot of people, like you say, there's a
50:20
lot of people that, that- Maybe kind of thrive under that pressure.
50:24
Mm-hmm.
50:24
It's enough of a motivator for them that then their riding at home has
50:28
more, Meaning â¦ more meaning.
50:31
It has moreâ¦
50:32
There, there's something more for them to look forward to
50:35
is that test, is that show.
50:37
Because again, the practicality is missing in it, right?
50:40
So it's just the because I want to, right?
50:43
Which is fine.
50:43
I think, I think because I want to is a really fine-
50:47
Rupert Isaacson: There's nothing wrong with it- â¦ pretext
50:47
with endeavor, right.
50:47
Patrick King: Exactly.
50:48
Exactly.
50:49
You know, so s- for some riders having the idea of showing is enough of a motivator,
50:54
even if they only show once a year.
50:56
I've got plenty of students that show once a year.
50:58
I've got lots of students that don't show.
51:00
I don't wanna make it sound like I'm big competition.
51:02
I haven'tâ¦
51:03
I've got a yearling colt right now that's going out to shows just to get out into
51:07
the real world and see experience so that someday when he's gonna be a big fellow,
51:11
so that someday I don't have to pack a parachute for my first horse show, right?
51:15
Yeah.
51:16
But it, it's if that's what helps someone feel that they're
51:21
working towards something- Mm
51:23
then that's fantastic.
51:24
My feeling of what I'm working toward is what we see at,
51:30
say, the Portuguese school.
51:32
It's what we see at the Valences, is that quiet connection.
51:36
It's the memories that I have of working with Ray Hunt, where you
51:42
thought a thought and the horse executed what you were thinking.
51:45
Can I combine that with the elegance and the precision of dressage?
51:49
That's where I wanna be.
51:51
Mm.
51:51
I wanna have that lightness, that, that true dance partnership that
51:57
weighs nothing, and that does some of the, the most collected, most
52:02
high-level athletic movements.
52:04
Can we have that weigh nothing in thought and in body?
52:08
That's my goal.
52:09
So every day, can I get a little closer to that?
52:13
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
52:13
And lightn- lightness is a really interesting subject, right?
52:16
Because something- Yes â¦ can be physically light, but
52:19
emotionally not light at all.
52:22
Patrick King: Exactly.
52:23
And- Yeah â¦ and I think that- Somebody was asking me recently about the
52:25
difference between lightness and softness.
52:28
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
52:28
Well, they're related.
52:29
Patrick King: And-
52:29
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
52:30
Patrick King: Yeah.
52:30
And, and, and I thought it was an interesting thing, and you hear
52:33
people have different opinions on it, or different definitions, I guess.
52:37
And I think, you know, a pillow is soft.
52:41
Can be, right?
52:42
A pillow can be soft, but there's not any structure to it.
52:45
A feather is light, and it can carry a bird through the air.
52:50
Rupert Isaacson: Nice analogy.
52:52
Patrick King: It's light and it has structure.
52:54
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
52:54
Patrick King: Right?
52:55
So that's, when I think about lightness, lightness has structure
52:58
and softness inside it- Softness by itself doesn't have much structure.
53:06
Rupert Isaacson: It's interesting, too.
53:07
Have you ever read let's, let's really nerd out here.
53:09
Have you ever read Dom Diogo de BraganÃ§a?
53:11
He was-
53:13
Patrick King: Not yet.
53:13
He's sitting on my shelf out here, but I've not yet gotten to that, but
53:16
I have hundreds here that I haven't
53:18
Rupert Isaacson: gotten to yet.
53:18
It's, it's, it's a great read, and it's one of the, like all
53:19
great reads, it's an easy read.
53:21
Yeah â¦ and this is shout out to Xenophon Press time.
53:25
Patrick King: Definitely
53:25
Rupert Isaacson: Auntie, Auntie Richard Williams- â¦ who devotes his life
53:29
to publishing these books and selling them at prices that we can afford.
53:33
Thank you so much- Yeah â¦ Richard, for doing this.
53:34
It's amazing.
53:34
Yes.
53:35
He publishes all the dead dudes.
53:37
So Diogo de BraganÃ§a, for those who don't know, was a- another
53:39
longtime student of, of Oliveira's.
53:41
And but not just a student, a sort of contemporary, and
53:44
also a patron to some degree.
53:46
Mm.
53:46
Because the BraganÃ§a family is a royal family.
53:48
It's an offshoot of- Mm-hmm â¦ they're, they're aristocrats.
53:50
So highly involved in horse breeding, highly involved in horse training, and
53:54
so forth, and knew all the disciplines, the bullfighting, the doma vaquera,
53:58
not just the doma clÃ¡ssica, not just what we think of as dressage.
54:02
And he wrote this book, which is probably the one that's sitting on your
54:05
shelf, called I think it's Dressage in the French-Portuguese Style.
54:08
And, That's it, yes â¦ it's, and he synthesizes and sort of
54:11
explains- What people like Nuno tended to not explain terribly-
54:16
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
54:17
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: straightforwardly.
54:18
He's a bit more straightforward.
54:19
And he makes a point that lightness can actually be a problem in certain
54:23
types of horses if taken too far.
54:26
So he says- Sure â¦ for example, the, the Lusitano horse, which can sit almost
54:30
on its bum, like almost- Mm-hmm â¦ like sit down like a dog, can learn, if
54:35
he's mischievous, to use that against a rider, to use the very lightness.
54:40
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
54:41
Rupert Isaacson: Because, you know, this is something with this type of horse
54:44
you have to be a little careful of.
54:45
Mm-hmm.
54:45
Whereas if you're working with, say, a warmblood, you probably,
54:48
this is probably not even within the list of potential things that
54:52
you might have to watch out for.
54:53
Right â¦ it's a bit specific to, to the breed.
54:56
But nonetheless, it w- is, that one brought me up.
54:59
I said, "Oh," and I realized, oh, I've, I've actually experienced that.
55:01
Yeah.
55:01
Sometimes my own- Yeah â¦ horses, I have Lusitanos mostly.
55:04
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
55:05
Rupert Isaacson: Sometimes when they want to take the piss, you know, they'llâ¦
55:08
And I like my horses to take the piss a bit.
55:10
Patrick King: Almost hiding in the lightness, right?
55:12
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
55:13
Indeed.
55:13
Mm-hmm.
55:13
They can, like, say, "Okay, I'm, I'll sit.
55:16
I'll, I'll, I'll go into, like, perma piaffe.
55:18
How about that?
55:19
Oh, I'm a good boy.
55:20
I, I, no, no, y- y- you can't get annoyed with me 'cause I'm, you know?"
55:22
And-
55:23
Patrick King: Right.
55:23
Right
55:24
Rupert Isaacson: And then you're up there laughing- And you're
55:24
Patrick King: up
55:24
Rupert Isaacson: there
55:24
Patrick King: saying, "Turn left."
55:27
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
55:27
You're like, "How about we just go over there?
55:28
How about we, how about we close the gate we're trying to walk through?"
55:31
Right.
55:31
"Is it possible if we can do that?"
55:32
"No, I'm going to perma piaffe here and sit down."
55:34
Exactly.
55:34
And, and, and, and you start laughing because it's, it, it's
55:37
like, well, actually, this is a very joyful way to have a problem.
55:40
Mm-hmm â¦ it's a, it's a, it, it's a good problem to have.
55:44
But nonetheless- Right â¦ he ma- he made that point, that in fact you
55:47
always want this balance between all of these extremes, and it's somewhere
55:51
in that middle point- Mm-hmm â¦ is where the functionality lies.
55:55
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
55:55
Rupert Isaacson: He also made a very good point which I think often gets lost, which
55:59
is that there's three types of dressage.
56:00
And people always forget this, because people like you and I, who
56:04
were introduced to it later in our career, we got introduced to something
56:09
in a rectangu- rectangular arena-
56:12
Patrick King: Yeah
56:12
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: with people doing lateral movements that then become
56:14
collective movements that are, is sort of balletic and controlled.
56:19
But there's also Doma Vaquera, which is the- Mm-hmm
56:23
adaptation of the cow work and the work with the young bulls that's
56:26
taken to an art form, which of course has plenty of piaffe passage and-
56:31
flying, changing things, but also different types of pirouette, and
56:33
the work with the garrocha, and- Mm-hmm â¦ faster work and slower work.
56:36
And now it's been sort of taken into working equitation.
56:40
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
56:40
Rupert Isaacson: And then, which at its apogee has, is, is, is
56:44
dressage with, with obstacles.
56:46
And- With
56:46
Patrick King: a different purpose, yeah
56:48
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: indeed.
56:48
Mm-hmm â¦ and then you've got rejoneo, as you probably know.
56:50
The rejon- Mm â¦ is the thing you stick in the bull.
56:52
Exactly.
56:53
And that's the combat style.
56:54
Very fast.
56:55
Mm-hmm.
56:55
Other specific movements that are in there that don't exist.
56:58
And you get some horses that really dig that.
57:00
Patrick King: Yep
57:01
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: but it's a bit of a minority.
57:02
So you don't- Nice â¦ want to go into the bullring on a horse that doesn't dig
57:05
it, 'cause you'll be dead very quick.
57:07
And then- Right.
57:07
Patrick King: Exactly
57:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: then there's Doma Classica, which is what- Mm-hmm
57:10
â¦ everybody else thinks of as dressage.
57:12
And
57:14
y- I, what I like about him pointing that out is he points
57:16
out you have more than one option.
57:18
If you want to explore this dressing of a horse business, and if you think
57:21
about, like, where we came in through the therapy work, and are still there-
57:26
Mm â¦ to a large degree, we don't really care the style in which the
57:31
horse collects and becomes light.
57:35
Right.
57:35
We judge it by, does it transmit joy to the child?
57:39
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
57:40
Rupert Isaacson: Does communication result?
57:42
And is the horse happy?
57:46
Rather than did I execute that movement
57:49
Patrick King: Exactly.
57:50
Yeah.
57:51
Yeah.
57:51
Rupert Isaacson: You know what I mean?
57:52
Patrick King: Yeah, for sure.
57:54
For sure.
57:55
And it's, you know, to that e- that makes me think of, of the time that
57:58
I spent with Ray Hunt starting colts.
58:00
It's funny that we're talking about dressage and starting colts at the same
58:02
time, but I do that all the time anyway.
58:04
Rupert Isaacson: It's the same thing.
58:04
It's
58:04
Patrick King: all the same.
58:05
Itâ¦
58:05
They, they are-- Yeah.
58:05
There's so much, you know.
58:07
Don't worry, we'll talk about trailer loading in a second.
58:09
To me, everything in life is trailer loading.
58:11
But- Actually, it's the same thing here.
58:11
I would say â¦ but as, as early as possible with the
58:14
young horses, we left the arena.
58:17
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
58:18
Patrick King: You know?
58:19
I remember several times starting colts with Ray, we would, we would,
58:23
you know, you introduce yourself to the horse, you introduce the
58:25
saddle to the horse, you climb on.
58:28
This is all within, you know, just a few short minutes, not because it's a
58:32
speed event, but because understanding was happening, and we didn't need
58:36
to spend too much time on it.
58:39
Just buildâ¦
58:39
You know, when we talk about the novelty in learning, when you get the horse really
58:43
open to learning, there are things that can progress without rushing, right?
58:48
And, and we'd be, you know, swimming around like fish in the arena because
58:52
there was five or six of us at one time, so it was a little herd of horses with,
58:56
with the, as I've heard you refer to it, with the sky monkeys on their back, right?
59:00
I love that expression.
59:01
And, and Ray would just shout out to one of the fellows working
59:06
for him, "Hey, open the gate.
59:07
They're ready to go for a trail ride."
59:09
We've been on these horses for 20 minutes now, right?
59:12
They're ready to go for a trail ride.
59:13
It's their first ride, you know?
59:15
But what Ray was really big on was that, that we shouldn't have the
59:22
horse do something because I said so Now coming from the Western
59:27
horsemanship side of things, particularly on the ranches, because
59:30
I said so is just not a good reason.
59:32
But because we're working the gate, or because we're tracking the cow, or
59:36
because we're going across the pasture, that makes more sense to the horse.
59:41
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
59:42
There's no-
59:42
Patrick King: And so then they can see the reason, which is why I feel so many
59:45
horses in our dressage horses really appreciate the working equitation.
59:50
Rupert Isaacson: No doubt.
59:50
Patrick King: That's why I leg yield.
59:52
Oh, to work the gate, or oh, rein back to get out of the bell chute,
59:57
or, you know, things like that.
59:59
Having a reason that they can see.
1:00:02
Mm.
1:00:02
Which is one of the things that Ray used to say all the time.
1:00:04
He had a high appreciation for dressage.
1:00:07
He would say that the cow horse or the barrel horse or the roping
1:00:11
horse, they can see their job.
1:00:13
So it's a, it's easier because they can see their job.
1:00:16
But the dressage horse or the reining horse can't see the job.
1:00:21
It's made up in our head.
1:00:22
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
1:00:23
Yeah,
1:00:23
Patrick King: it's almost an eye blink.
1:00:23
Yeah.
1:00:23
Can
1:00:23
Rupert Isaacson: weâ¦
1:00:24
Patrick King: Yeah.
1:00:25
Can we translate that to the horse that they understand the idea that we have
1:00:29
in our head, and that it has as much meaning to them as the job they can see?
1:00:35
Rupert Isaacson: 100%, you know, and it, I think horses that have a chance
1:00:38
to get started in the sort of working equitation way always do better-
1:00:43
Mm-hmm â¦ as dressage horses because they're not- Absolutely â¦ trying to
1:00:45
figure out this abstract, you know-
1:00:47
Patrick King: Things make sense.
1:00:48
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:00:48
Absolutely.
1:00:48
Absolutely.
1:00:49
Patrick King: Yeah.
1:00:49
I started riding with a garrocha, and I start so many young horses
1:00:53
now, and within the first couple rides, I pick up the garrocha.
1:00:56
Yeah.
1:00:57
They say, "Why do we untrack the haunches?
1:00:59
Why do we rock back and turn our front end?"
1:01:01
They see that big stick out there in my hand, and they say, "Oh,
1:01:04
I need to turn underneath that.
1:01:05
I n-," you know, things just make more sense.
1:01:07
Rupert Isaacson: They do.
1:01:08
Patrick King: Yeah.
1:01:08
Rupert Isaacson: And it, and it's also more fun, and it's more participative- For
1:01:11
Patrick King: both of us.
1:01:12
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm â¦ rather than do this thing that you don't understand,
1:01:16
Patrick King: And that u- that word, the participatory-
1:01:20
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:01:21
â¦ Patrick King: I always want to feel like the horse is an active
1:01:24
participant in the training.
1:01:26
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:01:26
Patrick King: If they are not- What are we doing?
1:01:30
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:01:31
Indeed, it comes back to the why are we even there?
1:01:33
And it's funny- Yeah â¦ you were talking about starting those
1:01:35
horses in arenas and going out.
1:01:36
You know, when I was a kid, young adult, we didn't have arenas.
1:01:41
Yeah.
1:01:42
We started all horses in stable yards and fields.
1:01:45
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:01:46
Rupert Isaacson: And everything was done in fields and- Yeah â¦ and on the roads.
1:01:50
And arenas came into my life relatively late.
1:01:56
In fact, what would happen is you wouldâ¦
1:01:57
The only time you're in an arena is when you went to a show.
1:02:00
Oh,
1:02:00
Patrick King: okay.
1:02:01
Sure, yeah
1:02:01
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: you did all your training in a field, and you might put-
1:02:03
Mm-hmm â¦ maybe some indicators down-
1:02:07
Patrick King: Yeah
1:02:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: little ground poles or something like that.
1:02:08
Little
1:02:09
Patrick King: visual barriers, yeah.
1:02:10
Rupert Isaacson: It was sort of an arena, but you know, it wasn't.
1:02:13
But then you go back to look at training manuals like the German
1:02:18
HDV12, you know, which is- Mm-hmm
1:02:19
the German cavalry manual, which I have mixed feelings about because
1:02:23
the Nazis were involved and so on.
1:02:25
But nonetheless there's a lot of very sound horsemanship in there.
1:02:27
And w- it's funny, you open that and they say, "Oh, no, start all your young
1:02:32
horses in a field with relatively good footing with about a 10-degree slope."
1:02:40
Mm-hmm.
1:02:40
So that the horse learns very quickly how to manage his own weight and manage his-
1:02:44
Patrick King: Yep
1:02:45
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: thing, and then only later go into, like,
1:02:46
highly artificial arenas.
1:02:49
Because otherwise- Mm-hmm â¦ the horse just won't learn anything.
1:02:51
He won't learn how to balance.
1:02:52
He won't learn how to-
1:02:53
Patrick King: Exactly
1:02:53
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: so the idea is still they're, they're training a horse.
1:02:56
They're preparing, preparing more than training, preparing a horse- Mm-hmm â¦ to
1:02:59
go out into planet Earth and do things.
1:03:02
Mm-hmm.
1:03:04
It's only very, very recently that we've had this option of saying,
1:03:07
"Well, we're never going to go onto planet Earth on our horse."
1:03:10
Right.
1:03:10
"We're just gonna stay in planet arena, planet dressage."
1:03:13
We're gonna,
1:03:14
Patrick King: we're gonna stay in the Petri dish of sand.
1:03:16
Mm-hmm.
1:03:17
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah,
1:03:17
Patrick King: yeah.
1:03:18
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:03:18
Yeah, and it's not where either of us were evolved to be, not really.
1:03:21
Patrick King: Exactly.
1:03:23
Exactly, and it's why we have so many challenges with our horses, you know,
1:03:28
the, the lack of forward, the lack of focus, the lack- Mm â¦ of whatever.
1:03:33
It's because they haven't experienced life.
1:03:35
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:03:36
Patrick King: You know?
1:03:36
I've got my, my yearling colt right now, a little Westfalen, little, little 16.2,
1:03:41
15-month-old Westfalen, that I'veâ¦
1:03:44
I was riding, I've got a Lusitano, a couple Lusitanos in training
1:03:47
right now, and ponying this colt out around the arena, around
1:03:51
the farm, that sort of thing.
1:03:53
It's good for the pony and the ponyer, right?
1:03:56
It's, it- it's the job.
1:03:57
It's the get out there in the real world, right?
1:04:00
Absolutely.
1:04:00
And there's nothing that can teach a horse as well as Mother Nature can.
1:04:04
Because it turns out the horse as a species evolved
1:04:09
for Mother Nature to teach it.
1:04:13
Rupert Isaacson: Really?
1:04:14
Patrick King: I mean, I mean, I don't know if all your listeners know this-
1:04:18
Rupert Isaacson: Does that
1:04:18
Patrick King: mean-
1:04:18
but it's like
1:04:21
It's like before we got involved, there was a whole world out there.
1:04:26
Rupert Isaacson: It, you know, this idea that horses exist for the human
1:04:29
ego, you know, it's, it's bananas.
1:04:31
But it, itâ¦
1:04:32
one can actually s- trace the history of how it happened.
1:04:34
It's a really interesting history.
1:04:36
So, you know, many of us think that dressage is a European thing, so often
1:04:39
I'll ask people, "Who," you know, "What's the first book on dressage?"
1:04:44
or, "What's the first book on horse training?"
1:04:45
And people will q- often quite reasonably say Xenophon.
1:04:48
Mm.
1:04:48
Greek, writing in 400 BC.
1:04:50
Super interesting dude, 'cause he's also-
1:04:52
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:04:53
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: one of the fathers of of Stoic philosophy.
1:04:55
He was a student of Socrates, he was a classmate of Plato, and he's also
1:04:59
a military man, as they all were.
1:05:01
And so he's also taught as the master of the tactical withdrawal.
1:05:05
'Cause he got- Mm â¦ 10,000 Greeks out of a bad situation in Baghdad
1:05:09
and got, walked them home to Greece.
1:05:11
And that's called The Anabasis, that book, and it's on YouTube.
1:05:14
It's worth a listen.
1:05:15
And he writes a book on horsemanship and he says, "Oh, I learned it
1:05:18
from the Persians," 'cause he went to Persia to do that thing.
1:05:21
Patrick King: Ah.
1:05:21
Rupert Isaacson: And of course they all did, because Greece
1:05:24
wasn't horse country, not really.
1:05:26
Greece is mostly mountains to the sea.
1:05:28
Sure â¦ so they had to import it.
1:05:30
They imported it by going to, they went to war with the Persians and
1:05:35
saw this really effective cavalry that the Persians had, and the
1:05:38
Persians had got it from other people.
1:05:41
The Persians had got it from steppe tribes up around the- Okay,
1:05:45
yep â¦ Caspian and Black Sea area, so Western Russia, East Ukraine.
1:05:50
And they, these people had gone down and raided the-
1:05:54
Patrick King: Mm.
1:05:54
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm â¦ cities of Anatolia and the fertile
1:05:57
crescent of Mesopotamia.
1:05:58
The people down there had gone, "Oh my God, these bastards are like total
1:06:01
pain in the ass, but they're great soldiers, and it's possible, it's, it's
1:06:05
ridic- it's not worth the hassle to go up there and try and conquer them,
1:06:08
'cause it's just like dudes and grass.
1:06:10
There's nothing to conquer.
1:06:11
But they make great soldiers, so let's hire them because we're
1:06:13
already at war with each other."
1:06:14
So that's where cavalry comes in.
1:06:16
And then it, the first book that we know of is 1350 BC, written by this bloke
1:06:21
called Kikkuli in cuneiform script on clay tablet, who was keeping the the
1:06:27
stables for the ro- the, the Hittite king.
1:06:29
Okay â¦ and it's now Hittite area is sort of where Turkey meets Syria, and
1:06:34
they were always at war with Egypt.
1:06:35
And you know, this is Bronze Age, right?
1:06:38
So it starts- Yeah â¦ early Bronze Age, about Br- by Xenophon, 400
1:06:42
BC, that's almost 1,000 years.
1:06:45
That's Iron Age.
1:06:48
It comes from the East into the West.
1:06:50
So we all think of it as like a white person thing.
1:06:52
We think of it as a-
1:06:53
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:06:54
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: as a as a European thing.
1:06:55
It's not.
1:06:55
It was a European import.
1:06:56
So back to this idea of status and the a, the horse as an
1:07:01
extension of the human ego.
1:07:03
S- if you have to import something, it's by its nature- expensive.
1:07:08
If you bring a Lusitano horse- Yeah â¦ from Portugal, it's expensive.
1:07:10
If you buy a Quarter Horse- Mm-hmm â¦ from down the road, it's not.
1:07:13
Patrick King: Exactly.
1:07:14
If
1:07:14
Rupert Isaacson: you have to bring something in from outside, it's expensive.
1:07:16
Oh, and then you gotta get all the Portuguese gear, and then you
1:07:18
gotta go over and ride at Luisa's.
1:07:20
Right.
1:07:21
Understand-
1:07:21
Patrick King: Right
1:07:22
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: what to do, and then maybe you gotta go and import a trainer,
1:07:25
meaning that you gotta go to the clinics, buy these guys, and that's expensive.
1:07:27
Mm-hmm.
1:07:28
By the time you tot up the bill, you've spent a lot more money
1:07:31
than the person who's just want a Quarter Horse down the road.
1:07:33
You imported it, and you imported it for a certain depth.
1:07:36
So, of course, the only people that aff- aff- afford to import
1:07:39
them were people like Xenophon.
1:07:40
They were aristocrats.
1:07:41
So the idea- Mm â¦ of the mounted man becomes associated with status then,
1:07:47
and then very quickly in Athens, Sparta, and then after, Rome, you couldn't
1:07:50
vote, you couldn't be on the Senate unless you were of the equestrian class,
1:07:55
effectively a knight, meaning that you c- had enough land that you could
1:07:59
support horses, because they weren't part of the indigenous local culture.
1:08:05
And- Mm, correct â¦ that's where we end up with the projection of the ego through
1:08:11
horse, rather than horses just being part of the culture, if that makes sense.
1:08:15
Yeah.
1:08:16
And it's quite interesting once one realizes that and realizes
1:08:18
that that's been going on in the European mind for quite a long time.
1:08:22
Well, no wonder we're all such a bunch of wankers, you know?
1:08:24
So, so the question is, how do, how do we de-wankify?
1:08:28
Patrick King: Right.
1:08:29
De-wankify.
1:08:29
So- That's, that's the word of the day: de-wankify â¦ how do
1:08:33
Rupert Isaacson: we de-wankify?
1:08:34
I could use a stronger word.
1:08:35
There's a word I often use when I'm clinicking, but I
1:08:37
won't use that word on YouTube.
1:08:38
Right â¦ so given that we're at this different stage in history now,
1:08:42
Patrick, you know, where I think people like you and I, wh- what we're trying
1:08:47
to do, now Sean, all these people, we're trying to democratize what has
1:08:51
been made into an exclusive thing,
1:08:54
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:08:54
Mm
1:08:55
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: and cross-fertilize back to proper horsemanship, because
1:08:58
those steppe tribes, by the way, were starting colts out on the steppe.
1:09:01
They didn't have a ring.
1:09:02
Patrick King: Right.
1:09:02
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
1:09:03
Exactly.
1:09:03
Like, they could do flying changes and pirouettes and all that, 'cause
1:09:05
you gotta do that for battle.
1:09:06
Mm-hmm.
1:09:07
So how are you â¦ What, what are your strategies for de-wankifying?
1:09:13
How does Patrick King help de-wankify dressage?
1:09:20
Patrick King: I, coming from
1:09:24
Coming from the different
1:09:30
Schools of thought.
1:09:31
Coming from the, the Ray Hunt horsemanship side of thought and the
1:09:35
classical dressage side of thought, I'm always trying to build the bridge.
1:09:42
I have a student that for several years she refers to me as the integrator.
1:09:47
She says, "It doesn't matter whose book I'm reading, you can teach me how to
1:09:50
integrate that into what we're doing."
1:09:53
Right?
1:09:53
Or, "Whose clinic I've audited or what video I've looked at, you can
1:09:56
teach me how to integrate that."
1:09:58
I think for me, it's, it's what's the goal, of course, and where's
1:10:04
the horse coming from, and then where's the rider coming from, and
1:10:08
how do we integrate those things?
1:10:10
How do weâ¦
1:10:11
Whatever, whatever the goal is, whatever the thing is, how can
1:10:15
we help the horse to understand?
1:10:18
How can we help the rider to understand?
1:10:22
And really big for me, and I, and I use this analogy a lot, if you and I
1:10:26
were working with our horses and then w- we were, you know, I don't know,
1:10:30
teaching them some sort of an exercise.
1:10:31
Shoulder in.
1:10:32
We're gonna teach them shoulder in.
1:10:34
If we turn them out into the paddock with their friends, could they explain
1:10:38
to their friends what we just did?
1:10:40
Or would they say, "Oh, I don't know," like, "He was pushing me around.
1:10:43
He was pulling on the right rein.
1:10:45
I felt a little off balance," you know, whatever, "and then he gave me a carrot."
1:10:49
I don't know.
1:10:50
Could the horse actually, and obviously they can't, but could
1:10:53
they academically explain to their paddock mates, "Here was the angle.
1:11:00
Here was the position.
1:11:02
Here was the balance."
1:11:04
Rupert Isaacson: I think we'd ni- need to take some severe psychoactive
1:11:07
co- compounds to look at a horse and see it doing that to its mates.
1:11:11
Patrick King: Right.
1:11:11
Rupert Isaacson: But I take
1:11:11
Patrick King: your- But does the horse actually understand the question-
1:11:16
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:11:16
â¦ Patrick King: that's being asked?
1:11:17
And that comes down to does the horse understand the language being used?
1:11:23
In my academy, every month we do-- I have a, an online academy, and
1:11:27
every month we do lectures, and it's a Zoom call very much like this.
1:11:31
And we-- each month we'll break something down.
1:11:34
It might be diagonalized balance, and we'll spend so much time talking about
1:11:39
like, "These are what these words mean, and here's how that's important to us."
1:11:45
Q- does our horse understand that?
1:11:48
If we pick up on a rein, can-- does our horse actually understand
1:11:52
what's coming through that rein?
1:11:54
When we, you know, you hear people say, "Well, use your seat."
1:11:57
Well, what does that mean to me?
1:11:59
This was a discussion I had with a student just recently.
1:12:01
You know, use your inside seat bone.
1:12:05
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
1:12:06
Use my inside seat bone.
1:12:07
If I lean on it, that's one thing.
1:12:09
If I pick it up, that's another thing.
1:12:10
If I carry it forward or backward or diagonally or upward, those
1:12:14
are all using the seat bone.
1:12:16
And this is where I think going back to what, what we were talking
1:12:19
about to begin with, where books are written by people who understand what
1:12:24
they're writing and the perspective that they're writing them from.
1:12:27
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:12:28
Patrick King: Right?
1:12:29
The same word can mean so many different things.
1:12:33
Rupert Isaacson: 100%.
1:12:33
Patrick King: A friend of mine, Richard Winters, I don't
1:12:35
know if you know who he is.
1:12:36
He's a cowboy- No, I've heard about him â¦ from California.
1:12:38
He's a great fellow, reined cow horse trainer.
1:12:41
But he loves to say, "Poor Blue was so blue, he blew his
1:12:44
nose in my blue handkerchief."
1:12:46
That same word can have a lot of different meanings, right?
1:12:51
And another thing that he says that I really love is,
1:12:53
"Everything works sometimes."
1:12:56
Right?
1:12:56
But it's that, to me, the idea of what- whatever it is our goal is,
1:13:02
can we break it down into bite-sized pieces that it can be transferred
1:13:07
both to the rider and to the horse?
1:13:09
And then can we put those parts back together to reach the goal?
1:13:13
And along the lines of that, is it something that our horse is
1:13:18
actually even capable of doing?
1:13:20
For the most part, the answer is yes.
1:13:22
There are times when the answer might be no, depending on joint function,
1:13:29
depending on dysfunction, depending on pain, weakness, injury, things like that.
1:13:34
But for the, for the grand majority, the students that come to me, what they're
1:13:38
looking for from their horses is things that the horses are able to accomplish
1:13:42
if they have a translator, right?
1:13:46
Because i- if I have a goal But I don't know how to
1:13:51
translate that goal to my horse.
1:13:52
I don't know how to communicate to my horse.
1:13:54
Well, I need a translator, right?
1:13:56
I need somebody to, to integrate.
1:14:00
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, it's one of the great things about the dead dudes in
1:14:02
that they, they bequeathed us a system, or several systems- Mm-hmm â¦ that
1:14:08
are complimentary, let's say.
1:14:08
Patrick King: Yeah.
1:14:08
Rupert Isaacson: But because they wrote about it in such an obscure
1:14:11
way- Right â¦ we have difficulty understanding, and- Mm-hmm
1:14:15
um, that's come down into the teaching, which is difficult to understand.
1:14:19
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:14:20
Rupert Isaacson: And so we have trouble transmitting understanding to our ponies.
1:14:24
Yeah â¦ but that's, that's-
1:14:25
Patrick King: Because teaching itself is not really possible.
1:14:29
Learning is, though.
1:14:31
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, that's an interesting, that's an int- Just
1:14:33
extrapolate on that a little bit.
1:14:34
Patrick King: Right.
1:14:34
Well- Yeah â¦ you know, to say, "I'm going to teach you something."
1:14:37
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:14:38
Patrick King: That almost implies I'm putting it on you, I'm stuffing
1:14:42
it into you, into your brain or your fingertips or whatever.
1:14:46
Well, I can't do that.
1:14:48
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:14:48
Patrick King: But I can set up a situation and get you thinking.
1:14:51
I can set up novel situations such that you can learn.
1:14:56
Rupert Isaacson: Got it.
1:14:57
This is one of the reasons why I'm such a believer in in-hand work because-
1:15:00
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:15:02
Yes
1:15:02
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: almost all the distress that I see and have experienced-
1:15:08
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:15:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: comes from confusion, which is its own form of fear because then
1:15:12
you fear the outcome of the confusion.
1:15:14
Patrick King: Exactly.
1:15:15
Rupert Isaacson: And so for us it's judgment or physical injury- Mm-hmm
1:15:20
um, with horses, judgment from other people or getting into
1:15:22
some bad situation with a horse.
1:15:23
Yeah.
1:15:23
And for the horse it's all manner of things because they're fear-based animals.
1:15:27
So-
1:15:28
Patrick King: And they know they taste good, right?
1:15:29
They do.
1:15:30
From a basic prey animal perspective- They do â¦ everything that, their primary
1:15:33
fear is that they're gonna be eaten.
1:15:34
Rupert Isaacson: Well, more than that, you know, it has to be, I've talked about
1:15:37
this in other interviews, it's, it, we have to accept the fact that we are, for
1:15:41
the most part, are horses' executioners.
1:15:43
We don't like to dwell on it, but we are generally the ones
1:15:46
who call the vet at the end.
1:15:47
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:15:47
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.
1:15:48
And if we're really lucky, we find our old horse stretched
1:15:52
out peacefully in the paddock.
1:15:54
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:15:54
Rupert Isaacson: I've had many old horses, and I've had, I think, three
1:15:57
or four where I've had that luxury.
1:15:59
Mm-hmm.
1:15:59
Yeah.
1:15:59
The others, I've had to make a decision.
1:16:01
Now, so the horse is quite right to regard me with some skepticism.
1:16:06
Sure.
1:16:06
And the fact that, you know, they're so willing to accept what
1:16:09
they are willing to accept from us is, is, is miraculous to a degree.
1:16:12
Patrick King: They're nothing if not adaptable.
1:16:14
Rupert Isaacson: Y- you go to Mongolia and people are, like, drinking
1:16:16
horses, and they're eating horses- Mm-hmm â¦ in front of the horses.
1:16:19
Mm-hmm.
1:16:19
And everyone's actually getting along with it just fine, but-
1:16:22
Yep â¦ that is the reality.
1:16:24
So you're right.
1:16:26
I- i- back to the sort of de-wankification, what I
1:16:29
really mean by that- Mm-hmm
1:16:29
is the democratization, the making accessible, the making clear, the
1:16:34
making, Mm-hmm And as you've gone to the Valenzas one of the, the great takeaways
1:16:41
from there is they create schoolmaster horses that you can learn on and with.
1:16:45
Absolutely.
1:16:45
So when I realized that, I was like, "Ooh, I want to learn how he does that."
1:16:49
Mm-hmm.
1:16:49
So â¦ And of course, I, that's kind of what I had to do for therapy work
1:16:52
anyway, in the way- Right â¦ so we went and learned that in-hand
1:16:56
system somewhat obsessively and found that it was so incredibly effective
1:17:04
because it was so incredibly clear.
1:17:06
Mm-hmm.
1:17:07
And it also rehabbed the horses you went, because they weren't bearing any
1:17:09
weight, and then by the time- Exactly
1:17:11
you were gonna put your fat monkey ass up there, you know, y- you, the
1:17:14
horse is sort of ready for it, and also understood- Yes â¦ what, what
1:17:17
monkey is gonna d- want from it.
1:17:19
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:17:19
And they know how to use their body in the way that we're talking about, right?
1:17:22
They have that physical point of reference.
1:17:24
I refer to the in-hand work a lot of times as, like, calisthenic work for us.
1:17:29
It's the, for instance, learning to do a pushup before you go to
1:17:32
the gym and do a bench press.
1:17:34
Before you add auxiliary weight- Yeah, exactly â¦ can you do
1:17:37
that with your body by itself?
1:17:39
And that's very much what the in-hand work is.
1:17:41
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly, and then breaking that pushup down to 1,000 pieces.
1:17:44
Mm-hmm.
1:17:44
How do you put your hand flat on the floor?
1:17:46
How do you- Exactly â¦ make your body into a plank?
1:17:48
How do you- Yep â¦ this?
1:17:48
How do you that?
1:17:49
And then can we put all those things together into a pushup?
1:17:51
You might have said, "I wanted to do a bench press," but actually what we
1:17:54
realized we had to learn first just how to put our hand flat on a surface.
1:17:57
Patrick King: That's it.
1:17:58
Rupert Isaacson: You know?
1:17:58
Patrick King: Yep.
1:17:58
Rupert Isaacson: And particularly if you don't speak the language that the person
1:18:01
speaks who's trying to, to tell you.
1:18:03
Exactly â¦ so we then took to heart the need to create schoolmaster
1:18:10
horses, so we did, and we do, and people can come and learn.
1:18:13
But-
1:18:15
Have you, is, is that what you do at yours too?
1:18:18
If, if people wanna come to you, can they work with your ponies?
1:18:22
Patrick King: No.
1:18:23
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:18:23
Why can't they?
1:18:24
Patrick King: No, and a big reason for that for me is that up until
1:18:27
Rupert Isaacson: a couple years ago- By work with, I don't necessarily mean ride,
1:18:29
but can they work with them to any degree?
1:18:31
Patrick King: Maybe.
1:18:32
Essentially it's if I have a horse in training that understands the question
1:18:36
that they're trying to ask, we may do a little in-hand, but for the most part,
1:18:40
I, I don't normally do that anyway.
1:18:42
Up until a few years ago, I was on the road.
1:18:45
I spent several years where I was on the road about 350
1:18:48
days a year teaching clinics.
1:18:50
Rupert Isaacson: That's a lot of days,
1:18:50
Patrick King: yeah.
1:18:50
That's a lot of days.
1:18:52
So like talk about road warrior, and I had clinics seven days a week, and I would
1:18:56
drive from one clinic to the next, unless it was, you know, across the country,
1:18:59
and then I would fly, but otherwise, I lived in the car for several years.
1:19:02
Mm.
1:19:02
So, like this yearling Westphalian that I mentioned, now he's my first
1:19:06
personal horse in a long stretch.
1:19:09
Ah.
1:19:09
Because I've been so busy teaching that it didn't make any sense for
1:19:11
me to own any horses, because I was never gonna be home, right?
1:19:14
But people can come to me and, and, you know, we can work with
1:19:18
their horses or when I'mâ¦
1:19:19
It's very much like doing a clinic, but they're just coming to my
1:19:22
home turf essentially for that.
1:19:23
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:19:24
Yeah.
1:19:24
But do you see that- Mm-hmm â¦ as something that
1:19:25
you might offer in the future?
1:19:26
Because it one of the things which-
1:19:27
Patrick King: I would love to.
1:19:28
Yeah.
1:19:29
Yeah.
1:19:29
And, and I feel like- Because it's so effective as a teaching
1:19:31
Rupert Isaacson: tool
1:19:31
it's almost impossible to learn anything unless the horse- Mm-hmm â¦ unless
1:19:33
you're paired up with a horse, a pony that can actually show you.
1:19:37
As you may know, if you've been following my work, we are also horsey folk here.
1:19:42
And we have been training horses for many, many years in the manner of
1:19:46
the old classical dressage masters.
1:19:50
This is something which is often very confusing for people.
1:19:53
We shine a light on that murky, difficult stuff and make it crystal clear.
1:19:58
If you'd like to learn to train your horse in the manner of the old masters and
1:20:03
really have fun and joy for you and your equine, go to our website, heliosharmony.
1:20:09
com Sign up as a premium member.
1:20:12
and begin to take the Helios Harmony course, which will take you from zero
1:20:16
to the Piaf, where the horse is dancing on the spot in hand on the ground.
1:20:22
And then from there, you can develop out to anywhere you want to.
1:20:26
Heliosharmony.
1:20:28
com to unlock the secrets of the old masters.
1:20:32
Patrick King: Exactly.
1:20:33
And, and again, to quote Ray, you know, "You're doing something you never
1:20:36
did to get something you never had."
1:20:39
Right?
1:20:39
So it's, it's, it's easy to start too late or start too soon or do
1:20:43
too much or do too little, right?
1:20:45
And you wouldn't know any different unless you've got the school master
1:20:48
that can really teach you, like, yep, that's the button, right?
1:20:51
So again, like when we talk about, you know, use the seat.
1:20:54
When I think about using my seat, it's m- like I, I jokingly refer to
1:20:59
it as it's a cellular use of the seat.
1:21:02
Yeah.
1:21:02
It's, it's your core intrinsic muscles.
1:21:05
It's the ideomotor response, where you think about it and
1:21:08
your body makes the change.
1:21:09
Yeah.
1:21:10
It's not like, you know, you see somebody, like a big brute, you
1:21:13
know, just barbarically trying to shove their horse around.
1:21:16
That to me is not the use of a seat.
1:21:18
Absolutely.
1:21:18
That's an abuse of the seat, but not a use of the seat.
1:21:20
No.
1:21:21
Rupert Isaacson: I couldn't agree more.
1:21:22
I, it took meâ¦
1:21:23
I realized when I was first in, in this dressing of ponies endeavor that what I
1:21:29
actually had to do was neutralize my seat
1:21:31
Patrick King: Exactly
1:21:32
Rupert Isaacson: I had to bring- It's
1:21:32
Patrick King: so
1:21:33
Rupert Isaacson: easy to do too much â¦ completely down the middle,
1:21:34
and then, then I could- Mm-hmm â¦ maybe, as you say, learn to use
1:21:38
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:21:39
Rupert Isaacson: But as long as I try to use it, I just block
1:21:42
- Mm â¦ the horse with my pelvis.
1:21:44
Patrick King: 100%.
1:21:45
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:21:45
Patrick King: Because you're either adding weight to the leg they need to move, which
1:21:48
is getting in the way of it, or you're blocking the side they need to move to, or
1:21:52
you're, you know, so many of those things.
1:21:54
It's, it's that- But
1:21:54
Rupert Isaacson: it's interesting how that's not explained-
1:21:55
micro thing â¦ isn't it?
1:21:55
You know, so, so, so often we're told growing up- Oh, yeah â¦ or even now,
1:21:58
say, hippos say, "Use the seat," and how is someone not going to interpret
1:22:02
that as, do a thing with my pelvis?
1:22:04
Do a thing.
1:22:05
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:22:06
Rupert Isaacson: Which is not- Exactly â¦ intrinsically not gonna work, yeah.
1:22:09
Patrick King: Right.
1:22:10
Right.
1:22:10
Yep.
1:22:11
Rupert Isaacson: You were mentioning that you do these
1:22:14
webinars with your online- Mm-hmm
1:22:16
students, and you talked about say, diagonalization.
1:22:20
Mm-hmm.
1:22:20
And I thought, "Ooh, I'm gonna ask him about that."
1:22:21
So- Oh.
1:22:22
â¦ t- t- talk to us talk to us about diagonalization.
1:22:25
How do you explain that, and how, how, what, why is that a useful
1:22:29
thing for us to even know about?
1:22:30
Patrick King: You know, I'm really obsessive about balance and preparation
1:22:36
for anything that we do, and so I think understanding how the horse
1:22:40
naturally balances themselves for any movement or lack of movement,
1:22:47
I think is, is really important.
1:22:49
And I say lack of movement because let's say for instance you have trouble with
1:22:52
your horse standing for the farrier, oftentimes it's because they're not
1:22:57
confident or comfortable holdingâ¦
1:22:59
Horses will stand on a diagonal balance as a generalization, right?
1:23:05
A lot of times
1:23:06
Rupert Isaacson: they- Just say, exactly.
1:23:07
Not everyone knows what that means.
1:23:08
S- say, what does that-
1:23:09
Patrick King: Yeah
1:23:09
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: actually
1:23:09
Patrick King: mean?
1:23:09
So the, a diagonal balance would be, say, the inside hind and the outside front.
1:23:17
I break this down, 'cause again, I'm, I'm such a nerd about I
1:23:19
wanna know the why behind things.
1:23:20
You're
1:23:20
Rupert Isaacson: standing on a St.
1:23:21
Andrew's cross.
1:23:23
Patrick King: There we go.
1:23:24
Yep.
1:23:24
Yep.
1:23:25
So I, I always wanna know the why.
1:23:28
When I was growing up riding hunt seat, I was told what I'm sure
1:23:32
everybody is told, "Rise and fall with the shoulder on the wall."
1:23:37
My question was, "Why?"
1:23:40
And the instructorâ¦
1:23:41
I only had a couple lessons growing up, two or three lessons growing up.
1:23:44
Most of it I had to figure out myself, which was so great because
1:23:48
that fed the nerd in me, right?
1:23:51
But the, the answer that I was given was, "Well, so the judge
1:23:56
knows that you know your diagonals."
1:23:58
Well, that's a really dumb answer, right?
1:24:02
That makes zero sense
1:24:04
Rupert Isaacson: to me.
1:24:04
But it's such a telling answer, isn't it?
1:24:05
Because-
1:24:05
Patrick King: It's a, it's a very telling answer.
1:24:07
Because that's what we tell the kids.
1:24:07
Yeah.
1:24:07
And so it's one of those things that, yeah, because, because we said so.
1:24:11
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:24:11
Patrick King: Right?
1:24:12
Because we said so.
1:24:13
Rupert Isaacson: And you can even feel it, that the balance works better that way.
1:24:16
But yes- Mm-hmm â¦ as a kid, as a, as a, as a, as a curious, intelligent
1:24:19
child naturally you want to know why.
1:24:23
Patrick King: Of course.
1:24:24
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:24:24
Patrick King: Right?
1:24:24
Rupert Isaacson: And if you-
1:24:25
Patrick King: Because there's two other feet that you could do that with.
1:24:27
Why, why this one?
1:24:28
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:24:28
You
1:24:28
Patrick King: know?
1:24:29
Yeah.
1:24:29
Why push the red button when I haveâ¦
1:24:31
There's a blue button, too.
1:24:32
What happens if I do that, right?
1:24:34
And I remember many years ago, I had a, a little mare that was so sensitive that
1:24:38
depending on the diagonal you posted to, she'd tilt her nose just a little.
1:24:46
If you were on a circle and you changed to the, the wrong diagonal,
1:24:50
slight counter flexion, because the horse's nose will always draw to the
1:24:54
hind leg that's carrying more weight
1:24:59
And that's an evolutionary thing.
1:25:01
That's the tail swims the fish, right?
1:25:05
So when you watch a horse walking and you see, like, in a really good free
1:25:08
walk, the nose will swing, and my friend Gillian Kreinbring refers to the figure
1:25:14
eight of the horse's nose as they go, but there's the right and the left.
1:25:17
And if you watch, the nose goes toward the hind leg that's on the ground, right?
1:25:21
The tail is swimming the fish in that regard.
1:25:24
But so, so the balance, the horse always balances on a diagonal pair.
1:25:31
Generally speaking, inside hind and outside front.
1:25:36
We say inside hind and outside front, assuming we're on a circle, where
1:25:39
the world's a giant ball, so we're always riding on a circle no matter
1:25:41
how straight we think we're going.
1:25:44
If I were to ask, say, forâ¦
1:25:47
I'll break that down even more.
1:25:48
So inside hind, outside front, that's the rise and fall with
1:25:52
the shoulder on the wall.
1:25:53
Great.
1:25:54
That makes perfect sense to us when we're trotting because those
1:25:57
legs move synchronized, right?
1:26:01
When we're cantering, footfall sequencing, outside hind, diagonal pair, inside front.
1:26:07
They're still balancing on the same legs in the canter as they were in the trot.
1:26:11
Challenge comes in the walk.
1:26:13
Those legs aren't synchronized.
1:26:15
They move out of sequence.
1:26:16
But they're still a balancing diagonal pair.
1:26:20
This is what I think makes the walk one of the hardest gaits to ride and the easiest
1:26:24
gaits to ruin because the balance can ping-pong rather than stabilize, right?
1:26:31
But one of the things You don't say it.
1:26:36
You've heard your friends say, "My horse drops their inside shoulder."
1:26:40
Right?
1:26:43
I would say, "My horse is on the wrong diagonal."
1:26:47
We think about I could be on the right diagonal or I could
1:26:50
be on the wrong diagonal.
1:26:52
Well, you and I could walk across my kitchen floor and stumble and fall
1:26:56
because our balance was incorrect.
1:26:58
Why would we assume that the horse could not have the same challenge?
1:27:01
Rupert Isaacson: I have done that across my own kitchen
1:27:03
floor numerous times, actually.
1:27:04
Patrick King: Right
1:27:04
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: tequila sometimes has something to do with it, but.
1:27:06
Patrick King: It will.
1:27:07
Yeah, yeah.
1:27:08
No doubt.
1:27:09
Yeah.
1:27:10
But so thinking about that with our horses, are they on the proper balance-
1:27:14
Rupert Isaacson: Mm
1:27:14
Patrick King: for the movement that we're going to ask for?
1:27:17
If we ask, let's say, let's break it down even more.
1:27:20
If we wanna ask a horse to go from a walk to a trot, pretty
1:27:24
basic, simple transition.
1:27:25
Which hind leg are they using?
1:27:28
Well, the inside hind is the one that steps underneath them more, so it
1:27:31
carries more weight if we're on a circle.
1:27:33
It's gonna carry more weight, so it should be that driving leg, and then
1:27:38
that transition is fluid and smooth, and you'll feel the top line sort
1:27:43
of lengthen, even just a little.
1:27:45
Let's say they start off with the outside hind leg pushing, the head'll
1:27:51
pop a little, even if it's just a little, or the back'll tighten
1:27:54
a little because the leg that was pushing with more weight is counter
1:27:58
to the direction that they're going
1:28:02
So then we see a discrepancy in that smooth transition or whatever
1:28:06
we wanna talk about because the wrong leg did the, did the work.
1:28:09
We still got into a trot, and that one's easy enough because
1:28:11
the legs are diagonalized, right?
1:28:13
So it's, it's almost easy to hide it.
1:28:15
And within one step they can get their balance back just like you or
1:28:18
I could walking on the cobblestones.
1:28:20
We take a little misstep, and then we catch our balance and we go on, right?
1:28:24
But can we prepare the horse, again, as Ray would say, can we prepare
1:28:29
for the position to the transition?
1:28:32
And if we prepare the position, the transition takes care of itself,
1:28:37
was something he used to say.
1:28:38
And I used to think that I knew what that meant, and then I started diving into this
1:28:42
balance aspect and really understanding the mechanics of the joints and the
1:28:45
legs and how the spine is connected to all of it and all those things.
1:28:48
And then I thought, you were with him and you could ask these
1:28:52
questions, and you weren't there toâ¦
1:28:53
You know, like Iâ¦
1:28:53
And I hadn't thought of it at that degree before, right?
1:28:57
So we talk about learning being the spiral, you know, that we cover
1:29:00
the same layer over and over again with a different understanding.
1:29:04
But that balance, so talking about the diagonalization in that
1:29:08
sense, I'm not talking a- about necessarily going into half steps
1:29:12
or piaffe, but the diagonal balance.
1:29:15
If I want my horse to go into, say, a, a travers or a half pass, we talk
1:29:23
then about bend and counter bend.
1:29:26
That would be a conversation about balance and counterbalance because in
1:29:31
the travers or in the haunches in, it's the outside hind and the inside front
1:29:36
that are gonna be carrying the balance.
1:29:38
The other two are traveling legs, of course, but they're
1:29:41
not supporting the body as much.
1:29:43
They're not carrying that balance.
1:29:44
So it's where does the balance need to be for, for what we're asking of a horse.
1:29:49
A, a lot of times you can help a horse that maybe is a little bit not so skilled
1:29:55
in their flying changes by not thinking about changing lead, but by thinking
1:29:59
about changing the balancing diagonal, and then skipping is a lot easier, right?
1:30:05
Skipping being the flying change.
1:30:07
If we can attain the balance, so we talk frequently, and Charles would talk
1:30:13
about this, Charles de Cunffy, balance first, posture second, transportation
1:30:20
third If I have the horse in the right balance, but the posture is not where
1:30:25
it needs to be, say they're inverted or they're crooked or whatever, then the
1:30:29
transportation is not gonna be sufficient.
1:30:32
So the, the flying change or the half pass across the arena or something like that.
1:30:37
So we have to find first the balance, then the posture, and then take that
1:30:41
into whatever the movement might be.
1:30:44
Rupert Isaacson: That's very nicely put, beautifully put.
1:30:46
Thank you.
1:30:47
Patrick King: Whew.
1:30:47
Rupert Isaacson: And- â¦ it there's two, three things come to mind there.
1:30:51
So, as I'm sure you know, when you're riding with Master Valenza, he'll
1:30:55
often say "Position, balance, execute."
1:31:01
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:31:02
Rupert Isaacson: If one of those things isn't there, don't execute.
1:31:05
Wait.
1:31:05
Patrick King: Don't execute.
1:31:06
Exactly.
1:31:07
Rupert Isaacson: Just wait, you know?
1:31:08
Yep.
1:31:08
You thought you were gonna do your line of flying changes there.
1:31:10
Well, if it, that's not in place, just don't do them.
1:31:12
Just, just keep going-
1:31:13
Patrick King: Just don't do it.
1:31:14
Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely â¦ until you've got it together
1:31:17
and then maybe do it.
1:31:18
Patrick King: Absolutely.
1:31:19
Prepare, don't repair.
1:31:21
Rupert Isaacson: Ooh, I like it.
1:31:22
Yeah.
1:31:22
So and then why does therefore a shoulder in work?
1:31:27
Because if you're putting that inside hind under that point of gravity to
1:31:31
some degree, it's going to have that carrying and driving effect that you're
1:31:35
talking about, which is going to have, you know, and they got Nuno saying
1:31:40
it's the alpha and omega of riding.
1:31:45
and the last because what it's gonna do is, is retrieve balance.
1:31:49
It's gonna prepare balance, but it will also retrieve balance-
1:31:51
Mm-hmm â¦ if you lose balance.
1:31:52
So you know, you think, well then, why if I mess something up, why does it
1:31:55
work if I do a little circle, a volt?
1:31:57
Mm-hmm.
1:31:57
Why does it work if I do a little circle around my leg?
1:31:59
'Cause that's effectively a couple moments of shoulders in.
1:32:02
Why are corners your friend?
1:32:03
Well, because- It's the
1:32:04
Patrick King: position of shoulder in,
1:32:05
Rupert Isaacson: for
1:32:05
Patrick King: sure.
1:32:05
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm â¦ giving you a little bit of a moment of shoulders in.
1:32:06
Mm-hmm.
1:32:07
If that hind leg comes under, then the horse can rebalance.
1:32:10
Then why do horses al- also seem to calm down when that happens?
1:32:13
Because they find their balance.
1:32:14
If they find their balance- Because they
1:32:14
Patrick King: find their balance.
1:32:15
Mm-hmm
1:32:16
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: physically, they're probably gonna find
1:32:17
their balance emotionally.
1:32:19
Patrick King: Bingo.
1:32:19
And it's
1:32:20
Rupert Isaacson: the-
1:32:20
Patrick King: Bingo.
1:32:20
Because the loss of balance, the nervous system then wants
1:32:23
to protect itself, right?
1:32:24
Indeed.
1:32:25
And particularly when you add the weight of the rider, now he's not only
1:32:29
fighting gravity- Mm-hmm â¦ but he's fighting added weight- Yeah â¦ in
1:32:33
spite of or on top of that gravity.
1:32:35
Yeah.
1:32:36
Exactly.
1:32:37
And so of course he's gonna protect himself, right?
1:32:39
That we'll call tension or resistance or whatever.
1:32:41
It's, it's the body protecting itself.
1:32:44
And almost always protection of the hind leg because the hind leg is the horse's
1:32:49
primary means of flight from fear.
1:32:52
Mm.
1:32:53
Flight from death, right?
1:32:54
So we see, you know, head tossing, we see, you know, all, all sorts
1:32:59
of movements and behaviors.
1:33:01
Almost all of them come down to the horse protecting the hind legs as
1:33:04
the means of escape if necessary
1:33:08
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, this is not explained.
1:33:10
This is great.
1:33:11
This is the point of doing this kind of a podcast.
1:33:14
Patrick King: Right.
1:33:14
It's why we do these things.
1:33:15
Yeah.
1:33:16
Yeah, yeah.
1:33:17
Rupert Isaacson: And again, you know, you were talking before we
1:33:18
switched on the, the recording.
1:33:20
It's like, you know, you, you were chatting to friends, you know,
1:33:22
in your hotel rooms as you're driving around doing trainings.
1:33:25
And of course, with each training you learn more, right?
1:33:27
Every t- clinic you give, you learn from your students- Mm-hmm â¦ you learn
1:33:29
from the horses, and then you're, you're exchanging these types of thoughts with
1:33:32
your mates, and thinking, "Yeah, but actually why aren't we having these
1:33:36
conversations a bit more publicly?"
1:33:38
It's also- Exactly, yeah â¦ I think, I think there's a real insight in what
1:33:41
you just said there that clears a, a big confusion for a lot of people about
1:33:45
these two weird words, driving aids.
1:33:48
So you'll often hear that word, right?
1:33:50
Mm-hmm.
1:33:51
And it comes, unfortunately, in a bad translation from the German.
1:33:55
And in the German, it, that doesn't necessarily mean what it means in English,
1:34:00
which is, if you say driving - Mm-hmm
1:34:01
aids in English, it automatically means kick.
1:34:03
It automatically means push.
1:34:05
It automatically means- Mm-hmm â¦ try and get more than you've got.
1:34:09
Mm-hmm.
1:34:09
Whereas it, what it actually means, and I know this because I nailed Christoph
1:34:14
Hess down about it, who used to be the head of education at the FN in Germany.
1:34:18
Mm-hmm.
1:34:18
I'm like, "Why do you say that?
1:34:19
Because if you say that to English people, all they're gonna do is kick."
1:34:23
And- Yeah â¦ then they'll go faster, and then you'll tell
1:34:25
them they're doing it wrong.
1:34:26
But there's no way in th- that semantics that they're not actually correctly
1:34:31
interpreting what you told them to do.
1:34:34
Right.
1:34:34
So if it's not what you want them to do, what is it that you want them to do?
1:34:36
And he said, "Well, what I want them to do is, is put the inside hind leg
1:34:40
under a little bit so it can drive."
1:34:43
So I said, "So what you actually want them to do is ride in
1:34:45
shoulder for a little bit."
1:34:46
And he said, "Well, yes."
1:34:48
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:34:48
Rupert Isaacson: And I said, "Well, then
1:34:49
Patrick King: tell them that."
1:34:51
Right.
1:34:51
Oh, clarify.
1:34:53
Rupert Isaacson: Tell them that.
1:34:53
Clarify.
1:34:53
Because that treiben thing in, in-
1:34:57
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:34:57
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: English comes up with a bunch of different meanings.
1:35:00
And, Mm-hmm â¦ this is, I think, often a, a real difficulty for
1:35:03
us as Anglophones in that, that dressage is not really developed.
1:35:07
There's only been one grand master, really, in England, and that was the Duke
1:35:10
of Newcastle, and he- Mm-hmm â¦ in the 17th century, and he learned all his stuff
1:35:13
in Antwerp when he was- Yeah â¦ you know, in in exile after the English Civil War,
1:35:18
where they chopped the king's head off, and he was looking after the king's son,
1:35:20
and then they came back because the bunch of gangsters that they put into power
1:35:25
after they cut the king's head off banned Christmas, and that was no crack, so they-
1:35:28
had to bring him back and then all the, Just no fun anymore.
1:35:31
Patrick King: I'm leaving
1:35:31
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: long faced bastards, we just sent them off to
1:35:33
Connecticut, and the rest is history.
1:35:36
You know, so after putting them all in the, in, in the
1:35:40
clink jail on the South Bank.
1:35:41
You know, all the people that got on the Mayfair, people say, "Oh, my,
1:35:43
my family go back to the Mayfair."
1:35:45
It's like, "That's nothing to be proud of, mate.
1:35:46
They were all convicts."
1:35:49
They were religious extremist convicts, yeah.
1:35:51
But anyway yeah, these things, y- I, I think what you just s-
1:35:56
explained there, I think for a lot of listeners made it clear.
1:36:00
And so for anyone who was perhaps driving while listening to this or
1:36:05
saying something to your kids or feeding the cat, and then you went, "Oh, gosh.
1:36:09
Shit, what did they say again?"
1:36:11
I'm gonna get you now-
1:36:13
Patrick King: Uh-oh
1:36:14
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: to synthesize what you said about the diagonalization and
1:36:18
those driving, carrying m- mechanics.
1:36:23
Can you now synthesize that down to a paragraph?
1:36:30
No pressure
1:36:35
Patrick King: Sip of coffee first
1:36:36
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:36:37
Drum roll
1:36:40
Patrick King: So I think in any movement that we ask from a horse, we need to
1:36:43
understand the roles and responsibilities of each leg in that movement.
1:36:52
The inside hind and the outside front, generally speaking, are
1:36:57
the primary balancing diagonal
1:37:02
The outside hind is a stabilizing leg, and the inside front is a leading leg
1:37:10
The inside hind carries more weight in a natural bend because
1:37:15
it steps under the mass greater.
1:37:18
So it's more responsible for the push or the drive as we talk about.
1:37:24
The outside hind has to stabilize.
1:37:28
If we think about any deviations of position from our horse, he
1:37:31
dropped his inside shoulder.
1:37:34
That means he's on the wrong diagonal.
1:37:36
That inside shoulder in that case then is carrying more weight.
1:37:41
We see that in problems when someone says, "My horse bulges the outside shoulder
1:37:46
like they're trying to leave the circle."
1:37:48
Yes, because now that's a leading leg, not a balancing leg.
1:37:52
Or, "My horse is swinging away with the outside hind leg."
1:37:57
Happens frequently with folks that will too much, I'll, I'll say too much, I'm
1:38:02
not gonna say at all, I'm gonna say too much, disengage the horse's hindquarters.
1:38:06
The outside hind leg swings away because there's no other place
1:38:09
for it to go, and then therefore it's not stabilizing the position.
1:38:15
Okay?
1:38:16
Each leg has a responsibility, and if one doesn't uphold its
1:38:23
responsibility, it sets off the dominoes.
1:38:26
So being a, as Charles would call us, a custodian to the balance, being
1:38:32
a custodian of our horse's balance, it's important that in everything
1:38:36
we ask them to do, we know where the balance needs to be so that we can
1:38:42
compare that to where it currently is
1:38:46
And how do we adjust it?
1:38:48
That's our half halt.
1:38:50
The half halt is a rebalancing.
1:38:53
It's a question of rebalancing.
1:38:55
And so when we talk ab- sorry, this is-- Now I'm going into the second paragraph.
1:39:00
Rupert Isaacson: Please do.
1:39:01
Patrick King: When we talk about half halt, half halt is rebalancing.
1:39:05
How many kinds of half halts are there?
1:39:08
There's as many different half halts for where your horse is to where
1:39:12
you want him to be, but I think of it generally speaking as there's
1:39:17
three dimensions of the half halt
1:39:22
The physical, the mental, and the emotional.
1:39:27
Mental, is he paying attention?
1:39:28
Is he with me?
1:39:29
Half halt is a redirect to say, "Hey, come back here."
1:39:33
Right?
1:39:34
"Can you, can you be with me and engage in this conversation?"
1:39:37
The emotional half halt is the energy's either too low or too high, right?
1:39:41
Anxious or maybe we'll say dull.
1:39:45
And so the energetic half halt or the emotional half
1:39:47
halt is can we stabilize that?
1:39:50
And then the physical half halt would happen on three different planes.
1:39:55
Longitudinal, lateral or diagonal, same, same thing, and then vertical or sagittal.
1:40:04
Is the weight too much to the forehand, enough to the back?
1:40:08
Is the weight on the appropriate balancing diagonal legs?
1:40:12
Is the horse upright in that balance, or are they leaning to one side or another?
1:40:19
So I guess six dimensions of the half halt ultimately
1:40:23
Rupert Isaacson: One of the interesting things that you've put your finger
1:40:25
on there is that when I try to explain to people what, why do you
1:40:29
dress the horse at all, and let's talk about this word, to dress.
1:40:33
I mean, the, many people will be very disappointed, Patrick,
1:40:36
because you're dressed currently.
1:40:38
You're not sitting there in your- I
1:40:40
Patrick King: don't think anybody's really disappointed by that.
1:40:44
Rupert Isaacson: They're probably relieved that I am dressed.
1:40:46
The, if we went to a restaurant and we ordered a salad, we would
1:40:51
be asked what dressing we want.
1:40:53
Mm.
1:40:53
If you cut your epidermis, you will put a dressing on it to
1:40:57
put it back together again.
1:40:58
If you were a woman sitting at her dressing table 100 years ago, you
1:41:02
were not putting your clothes on, because your bum's on the chair, it's
1:41:05
actually a bit difficult to, especially with a dress, how would you do that?
1:41:08
No, you're doing your hair and your makeup.
1:41:09
You're putting your ensemble together.
1:41:12
You're putting together.
1:41:12
Mm-hmm.
1:41:13
When I was at school, we were all compulsory military.
1:41:16
When the sergeant screamed, "Dress the ranks," it meant make sure you were one
1:41:20
arm's length from the man to your right and all the lines were straight, and if
1:41:22
it wasn't, you had to check the dressing, you had to put it together again.
1:41:26
So it's an old, it's an old Germanic word that means to put together, and
1:41:30
it exists in English, it exists in Dutch, it exists in all the Scandinavian
1:41:34
languages, it exists in German, and it exists in Norman French, 'cause
1:41:37
Norman French comes from the Vikings.
1:41:39
Mm.
1:41:44
It simply means to put together.
1:41:46
So the horse goes from a long wheelbase, where he's on the
1:41:50
shoulders mooching around or traveling from A to B or whatever.
1:41:53
That's a perfectly reasonable balance for that job, and that's moving in
1:41:56
two dimensions, from here to there, or in a straight line or a curve.
1:42:01
Long-ish, you know, wide-ish curve.
1:42:03
And then if the horse wants to fight or flirt or play in nature, no
1:42:07
monkey involved, he will do all of the dressage movements that exist.
1:42:11
What those are, are like when humans fight, flirt, and play, we
1:42:16
move in three dimensions, not two.
1:42:18
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:42:19
Rupert Isaacson: And we lower our center of gravity and we bring
1:42:20
our center of gravity underneath us, so we don't want to fall over.
1:42:23
Mm-hmm.
1:42:23
And we want to launch our energy and then do something else, and then spin and
1:42:26
do something else, and if we try and do that in a two-dimensional balance, we'll
1:42:29
hurt ourselves, and we also won't beâ¦
1:42:32
We'll wrench a joint, and we w- I- i- it won't work Mm-hmm â¦ with
1:42:35
a blade and we might fall over.
1:42:37
So we have to take this different approach, so different, different posture.
1:42:41
So of course- Exactly â¦ what we, the horse goes, because he's got four
1:42:44
legs, from a long silhouette to a short silhouette- Mm-hmm â¦ because
1:42:47
the legs come underneath there.
1:42:48
But, and then that brings the front of the horse up.
1:42:50
But he can't do that, if he does that intention, then he can't
1:42:54
go from there to anything else.
1:42:55
Like someone who's, wants to dance, but dances like this.
1:42:58
Mm-hmm.
1:42:59
Or if you want to do martial arts, if you're like this, well,
1:43:02
then no- Yeah â¦ it won't work.
1:43:03
You have to flow.
1:43:04
But the only way you can flow is through relaxation, and the only way you can
1:43:08
relax is by being familiar with something.
1:43:10
And the only way you can be familiar with something is by doing it a lot.
1:43:14
So- Mm-hmm â¦ repetition, and fami- you know, feeling
1:43:16
safe, effectively, in, in that.
1:43:19
So we know what to, that, if, if that is what we're dressing a horse to do,
1:43:22
to move in three dimensions, now with a monkey on its back, for as long as
1:43:26
the monkey wants to do it w- when the monkey wants to do it then we can u-
1:43:31
understand that, yeah, we're gonna need some kind of system for that.
1:43:33
You know?
1:43:34
Because- Mm-hmm â¦ th- we don't speak monkey.
1:43:36
You know?
1:43:36
I- i- sorry, if we do.
1:43:38
We don't speak pony.
1:43:39
Ponies don't speak monkey.
1:43:41
Mm-hmm â¦ so if you went to Japan and you wanted to learn how to do the best
1:43:46
aikido or the best karate, it, you could probably learn it from a master who
1:43:50
didn't speak any English if you spent long enough with them and you emulated
1:43:55
what they did and let them- Mm-hmm
1:43:57
put you in position and so on.
1:43:59
But w- h- that doesn't work with horses.
1:44:01
But we can evolve a kinetic language where over time, it will take longer, but over
1:44:07
time- Mm-hmm â¦ we can make this work.
1:44:09
And of course, luckily for us, dead dudes going back, you know, 4,000
1:44:13
years, and dudettes, have been figuring this shit out, you know?
1:44:16
And all we have to do is kind of do what they did.
1:44:19
But it's very nice to have you explain it like that, because you,
1:44:23
you were putting your finger on the work in three dimensions, basically.
1:44:26
Patrick King: Mm.
1:44:26
Yeah.
1:44:26
Rupert Isaacson: Because, you know, we're often put under
1:44:28
pressure to balance our horses.
1:44:30
It's like, I don't believe that's possible in, outside of one moment.
1:44:34
And then, of course, there's a loss of balance, and then-
1:44:37
Patrick King: Exactly
1:44:37
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: retrieval.
1:44:38
Patrick King: Which is just as important as the moment of balance itself.
1:44:41
It's, again, to use the push-up analogy- Yeah.
1:44:43
Yeah, to use the push-up analogy, to get to the top,
1:44:46
you start at the bottom, right?
1:44:48
There's just as much value in losing the balance, for us and for our
1:44:52
horses, because it allows the body to reorganize in a way to come back to
1:44:56
balance, and that's what movement is.
1:44:59
Exactly.
1:44:59
Balance is dynamic, it's not static.
1:45:02
Exactly.
1:45:02
Right?
1:45:03
So we have to be able to flow in and out of it in order to be
1:45:06
able to do whatever the thing is.
1:45:08
Yeah.
1:45:09
So you- So I get so picky about that.
1:45:11
When I, if I ask a horse to walk off, say, from the mounting block
1:45:14
or from a halt, I want to feel that he steps off with a hind leg first.
1:45:18
If we think of the horse's body as a bridge, if you pull the front
1:45:22
supports away from the bridge, the bridge collapses, and now you've
1:45:24
got, as you refer to it, a sky monkey sitting on top of the bridge
1:45:27
dropping the horse's back even more.
1:45:30
And now the hind feet are left in the last county, right?
1:45:33
Even if it's just for one stride, there's a loss of balance and there's
1:45:36
a loss of structural integrity.
1:45:38
Mm.
1:45:38
But if they step off with the hind foot first, they bascule the bridge,
1:45:44
and that becomes the, the bow under the saddle, as we talk about, right?
1:45:48
And then the horse is able to carry themselves forward in balance.
1:45:52
Rupert Isaacson: Nicely put.
1:45:54
So yes, lads, don't be afraid of the loss of balance, just put your attention
1:45:58
on the retrieval of balance- Exactly
1:46:00
the loss and the retrieval, and then you can actually go
1:46:02
somewhere and do something.
1:46:03
Exactly.
1:46:04
Because if we're so terrified of losing balance, then we'll never do anything.
1:46:08
Bingo.
1:46:08
And the whole thing is pointless.
1:46:09
Patrick King: Bingo.
1:46:10
It's- And education comes from finding it again, and strength
1:46:13
comes from rebuilding it.
1:46:15
Absolutely.
1:46:16
Rupert Isaacson: And your point about there being somewhat infinite types
1:46:19
of half halt y- you know, y- if you read three books on half halts, you'll
1:46:24
get seven different definitions, and they're all- Mm-hmm â¦ correct because
1:46:28
there's all these different contexts.
1:46:30
Mm-hmm.
1:46:30
Just like if you have to, or I have to, refine my balance in different
1:46:35
situations, we'll use slightly different mechanisms for getting
1:46:39
there depending on if we're carrying a backpack or holding a coffee mug or-
1:46:43
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:46:44
Rupert Isaacson: on ice, or on a cell.
1:46:47
Or
1:46:47
Patrick King: anything.
1:46:48
Yeah, exactly.
1:46:49
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:46:50
Or getting out-
1:46:50
Patrick King: Flying through the air
1:46:52
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: getting out of a car.
1:46:53
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:46:54
Rupert Isaacson: I, I have a friend who broke her leg getting off the toilet.
1:46:58
Patrick King: Oh, that's unfortunate.
1:47:00
Rupert Isaacson: It was, and I said, when I saw her, I was like, "Oh, bad fall?"
1:47:03
She's like, "Well, yeah, but not from a horse."
1:47:06
I'm like-
1:47:07
Patrick King: Oh
1:47:08
Rupert Isaacson: "Oh, you so didn't have to admit that."
1:47:09
Yeah.
1:47:10
Patrick King: Oh.
1:47:10
Right.
1:47:11
Rupert Isaacson: But it just shows that if, if any of us who, we have to
1:47:14
commit our balance so much, even in a normal walk, that if we hit a paving
1:47:17
stone that's even a quarter of an inch higher than the other- Mm-hmm â¦ paving
1:47:20
stone, we go, we face plant because- Mm-hmm â¦ we have to completely throw
1:47:24
away our balance, and the horse has to do that and carry us at the same time.
1:47:29
Patrick King: Exactly.
1:47:29
Rupert Isaacson: So that was very nicely put.
1:47:31
If you, if you, if you were to say to people, you c- you can
1:47:36
plug your online program here.
1:47:37
If you were, if you were to say to people, and we're gonna plug your
1:47:40
online program at the end anyway if you were to say to people, "What's
1:47:43
the one, two, three of this endeavor that they need to be aware of and
1:47:53
that you would help them understand?"
1:47:57
It can be one, two, three, four, five.
1:47:59
I'm done.
1:47:59
One, two, three is just a euphemism.
1:48:01
Patrick King: Yeah, yeah.
1:48:01
Rupert Isaacson: Well, what is it?
1:48:08
Patrick King: I would, I would distill it down to balance, posture, transportation.
1:48:13
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:48:14
Patrick King: Yeah.
1:48:15
Because without the awareness of those pieces, we can't organize
1:48:18
them, and if we can't organize them, we can't execute them.
1:48:21
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:48:21
Patrick King: Right?
1:48:22
And I think horsemanship and maybe life in general is about
1:48:25
80% preparation and 20% execution.
1:48:28
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:48:31
Patrick King: Yeah
1:48:32
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: depending how many pints we've had.
1:48:34
Yeah
1:48:34
Patrick King: That's it.
1:48:35
That's it.
1:48:39
But we know one way or another.
1:48:39
And then I always give, I have, I have wristbands.
1:48:39
Most of my students wear these wristbands that I, I say are the, the keys to
1:48:42
all of this, and it's printed on it, "Slower, softer, wait, and breathe."
1:48:49
And those are the four keys to any of this work
1:48:55
Rupert Isaacson: That was useful You and I both know that many
1:48:59
people when they go in front of
1:49:03
dressage, stress- stressage
1:49:07
Patrick King: Stressage, yeah, exactly
1:49:08
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: stressage lessons.
1:49:09
Stressage.
1:49:10
You are told often to kick your horse a lot because you
1:49:16
need to be, quote, "forward."
1:49:20
And - Right â¦ there's this interpretation that forward means fast.
1:49:23
Forward means-
1:49:24
Patrick King: Right
1:49:25
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: big energy.
1:49:26
And we all know that you can't drive a car fast until you've
1:49:31
learned to drive it slow.
1:49:33
And then- Exactly â¦ even if you do drive a car fast, you
1:49:35
shouldn't do it all the time.
1:49:37
Right.
1:49:37
And if you drive a car fast, you also don't want to have a hand on the handbrake
1:49:43
unless you're making a particular kind of handbrake turn, and if you do that too
1:49:45
many times you'll burn out the clutch.
1:49:47
Patrick King: Right.
1:49:47
You've got nothing,
1:49:48
Rupert Isaacson: another left, yeah.
1:49:49
And possibly spin your car.
1:49:50
So we know all these things, and we know that if I learn another
1:49:52
language, I need to learn it slowly, and we know that if I learn an
1:49:55
instrument, I need to learn it slowly.
1:49:58
How is it possible to add power before we have understanding?
1:50:02
And how can we have understanding at speed?
1:50:04
We can't.
1:50:05
That's it.
1:50:05
Or with power or on some huge warm blood that moves with such,
1:50:09
w- in, in Germany they call it a â¦ Bewegungswunder, you know.
1:50:11
A, a, a, a, a movement miracle, which is - Mm â¦ almost impossible for a
1:50:15
non-professional to sit and barely possible for a professional, which
1:50:18
is why they block all the saddles now because they've just bred horses
1:50:21
that's almost impossible to sit.
1:50:23
Patrick King: Absolutely.
1:50:24
Rupert Isaacson: Because judges want to see it.
1:50:25
So it, and what's r- expressly written in all the old dead dudes' books is,
1:50:31
"This is to be executed slowly with some-" Mm â¦ "moments of wazam!"
1:50:39
Sure.
1:50:40
From time to time.
1:50:41
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:50:42
Rupert Isaacson: When we feel, but for the
1:50:43
Patrick King: most part - To make sure we're not getting
1:50:44
stuck particularly, right?
1:50:46
Because we can, like you were talking about, the horse
1:50:48
hiding in the piaffe, right?
1:50:49
Yeah.
1:50:49
We can get, then that's not forward, right?
1:50:52
That's restricted in, in those moments.
1:50:54
Mm.
1:50:54
Forward is about intentionality in the joints.
1:50:57
It's not about speed, and speed is the enemy of balance.
1:51:01
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
1:51:01
Forward just means not backwards and not standing still.
1:51:04
Patrick King: And even backwards, so long as the joints are folding properly.
1:51:07
I think one of the best ways to develop forward in a horse is rein back.
1:51:10
Okay.
1:51:10
My students hear me talk about this all the time, and anybody who's
1:51:13
listening is probably surprised I haven't mentioned rein back before now.
1:51:16
Because I like to say, "If you have 30 minutes to ride and you
1:51:19
don't do 58 rein backs and 47 leg yields, you just wasted your time."
1:51:24
But the, a- and obviously I'm joking by, like, one or two, but the rein
1:51:29
back I think of as the ultimate rebalancing gait, not a movement.
1:51:34
It's a natural gait the horse has.
1:51:36
Mm-hmm.
1:51:36
They just don't utilize it often, just like with us.
1:51:39
Rein back, walking backwards, is a really great neural reset, right?
1:51:44
Brings the body into awareness.
1:51:46
Mm-hmm.
1:51:46
I think of it as it's the answer also to the half halt unheard.
1:51:52
If the horse struggles to rebalance- I'm gonna come into rein back to say, "By
1:51:56
the way, own your balance," because the proper rein back, proper is a different
1:51:59
word too, but the proper rein back uses and develops every muscle the horse
1:52:04
needs to carry us forward in balance.
1:52:07
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:52:07
And as, as Nuno Oliveira would say, the horse gives the back in the rein
1:52:13
back, softens the back, arches the back
1:52:15
Patrick King: If we're asking properly, if we're riding properly,
1:52:18
if we're not just, you know-
1:52:19
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed
1:52:19
â¦ Patrick King: monkeying the horse backwards - Indeed â¦ if
1:52:21
we're not pulling, if we're not creating, you know, all the
1:52:23
inversions and stress and whatever.
1:52:25
Rupert Isaacson: Indeed.
1:52:25
Yeah.
1:52:25
Let's assume it's happening nicely in a round thing, and everyone's calm- Mm-hmm
1:52:29
â¦ and everyone's happy- Mm-hmm â¦ and the horse is stepping back in that way.
1:52:33
Then of course, yes, the horse relaxes the under neck, flexes the back,
1:52:37
gives the back- Mm-hmm â¦ and boom, we got access to the, to the engine.
1:52:40
Patrick King: Bingo.
1:52:41
Rupert Isaacson: Right?
1:52:41
Yeah, yeah.
1:52:41
Patrick King: Bingo.
1:52:42
Yeah.
1:52:42
And that's the edge.
1:52:43
And
1:52:44
Rupert Isaacson: either it doesn't feel pure
1:52:44
Patrick King: Having the horse with the seat, right, or with the
1:52:48
aids versus on the bit, right?
1:52:52
With the aids, with the seat, having the horse there, you'd feel
1:52:59
I had a lesson with Bettina Drummond on one of her horses a few years ago.
1:53:03
I was very fortunate with that, and she had me prepare the horse.
1:53:08
We were going to go into collected canter from the walk, and she said,
1:53:12
"The moment you feel like you could rein back, release the canter."
1:53:15
Mm.
1:53:16
Boom.
1:53:17
There it was.
1:53:18
That's the balance, that's the organization over the haunches, and
1:53:21
then everything is available from there because it's an ultimate state of balance.
1:53:25
Similar to, I would assume the, the horse stance.
1:53:29
I've done a little bit of Tai Chi, but that's the only martial
1:53:31
arts I've, I've dabbled in.
1:53:32
But horse stance in Tai Chi, it's a base of support where movement comes from
1:53:37
there, centralized over the core, right?
1:53:41
In our horses, they're long body, not tall body, but it's the same
1:53:45
idea of can we engage that core?
1:53:47
Can we find those stabilizer muscles and have them in a state of ready so that
1:53:53
we can go anywhere from there and not be under stress, right, when we get there?
1:53:57
And that's where you're talking about, you know, not rushing, not
1:54:00
kicking them on, that sort of thing.
1:54:02
And something that you mentioned in there also about the, the forward and the first
1:54:07
thing riders wanna do is kick the horse.
1:54:09
We talk about it on the wristband, it says breathe, right?
1:54:12
Rupert Isaacson: I'm not even sure riders wanna kick the horse.
1:54:14
I think they're told they have to.
1:54:14
Patrick King: I don't think they do.
1:54:15
Yeah, they're told to.
1:54:16
Exactly.
1:54:17
Rupert Isaacson: Exactly.
1:54:17
And then they're often put on horses that have been so blocked that they
1:54:20
feel the only way they can get the horse to go, but I don't think anyone
1:54:22
actually wants to kick a horse.
1:54:24
Patrick King: I, I, I'm hopeful of that also.
1:54:27
Yeah, exactly.
1:54:29
But one of the things that, you know, we're always taught to focus
1:54:32
on our breath, but not too many say, "Is my horse breathing?"
1:54:37
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
1:54:38
Talk about that.
1:54:40
Patrick King: If the horse is not breathing, why wouldn't they breathe?
1:54:43
Well, they're out of balance, so they're bracing, right?
1:54:45
Where are they bracing?
1:54:46
They're bracing in their back, particularly in their lumbar spine.
1:54:49
Under the lumbar spine is where the diaphragm sits.
1:54:53
If the diaphragm isn't functioning properly, the hind legs can't move
1:54:56
through properly and power the horse up.
1:54:59
If the diaphragm isn't functioning properly, the visceral or the
1:55:04
internal organs cannot shift, and so the weight can't shift
1:55:08
to lighten the forehand, right?
1:55:11
If we think about the space that happens inside the horse, this is another
1:55:15
rabbit trail that I've gone down, a lot of body work schools of thought and
1:55:19
learning that I've tried to do in my eventual quest for world domination.
1:55:23
But the idea of if that horse is not breathing, then their body is
1:55:27
restricted, and how can we get forward with a horse that's holding his breath?
1:55:31
Because if he's holding his breath, he's jammed in the lumbar spine.
1:55:34
That's the transition center.
1:55:36
Movement from the hindquarters has to go through that railway station, that
1:55:40
Grand Central Station of the lumbar spine, to come forward through the body.
1:55:47
Rupert Isaacson: This is a beautifully put and succinctly put, hats off point
1:55:57
Patrick King: So to take that to something practical, let's say we're
1:55:59
teaching our horse shoulder in.
1:56:01
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:56:02
Patrick King: And the horse is working on finding the posture.
1:56:06
I don't want to say struggling.
1:56:07
The horse is working on finding the posture.
1:56:09
When they get to that posture, when they get to that placement, the first thing I
1:56:13
do is halt, drop the reins, and wait for
1:56:21
a diaphragmatic breath.
1:56:23
Not just a , but a full diaphragmatic breath, and then
1:56:28
we just walk off from that.
1:56:30
I want that horse to feel, if he asks me for shoulder-in, I can properly breathe.
1:56:35
Because if he can't properly breathe, then he can't properly propel himself forward.
1:56:40
The driving, the rebalancing can't happen properly if he's holding his breath.
1:56:45
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting, too.
1:56:46
So, you- we all know that when we do something for the first
1:56:49
time and we're hesitant, humans-
1:56:51
Patrick King: Mm-hmm â¦ will
1:56:52
Rupert Isaacson: hold our breath.
1:56:53
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
1:56:54
Rupert Isaacson: Horse is gonna do the same thing.
1:56:55
Patrick King: Horse is gonna do the same thing.
1:56:56
And- Because it's the nervous system protecting itself.
1:56:58
Yeah.
1:56:59
Right.
1:56:59
It's, it's a basic- And I say-
1:57:00
survival thing
1:57:01
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: is this shouldering gonna eat me?
1:57:02
You know.
1:57:03
So- Exactly â¦ when you go into a room that you don't know or who- or you aren't
1:57:08
sure, or, you're gonna hold your breath.
1:57:11
Exactly.
1:57:11
And horse will do the same thing.
1:57:12
Now you've got a horse and a human doing the same thing, because I'm
1:57:15
in front of my riding instructor who's yelling at me, or I'm scared,
1:57:18
or this, or that, or blah blah blah.
1:57:20
And- And
1:57:20
Patrick King: now just add more leg, more leg.
1:57:22
Inside leg, outside rein.
1:57:23
Yeah.
1:57:23
Rupert Isaacson: No, not like that.
1:57:25
Patrick King: Not like
1:57:25
Rupert Isaacson: that at all.
1:57:27
Patrick King: Half halt.
1:57:28
Rupert Isaacson: Half halt, drive, kick.
1:57:30
So
1:57:32
one of the things I like about, the many, many things I like about in-hand
1:57:37
work is because it happens slowly.
1:57:39
Mm-hmm.
1:57:39
There's a lot of opportunity to stop and breathe.
1:57:44
Exactly.
1:57:45
You, you have other moral support.
1:57:46
It's like you're two people going in there together, going to the room together.
1:57:48
Yeah.
1:57:49
Any time that we try to start something complex from the saddle, in terms
1:57:53
of before the horse has had a chance to understand it on the ground-
1:57:56
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
1:57:56
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: I think we're going to encounter that hesitat-
1:57:58
that, that, that non-breathing.
1:58:00
Mm-hmm.
1:58:00
And in fact, when I was a, a, a kid and I would ride a lot of cross-country
1:58:06
in events, and point-to-points and team traits and that sort of thing
1:58:10
if you're on a four-mile course, at least two people in the competition
1:58:15
would often keel off the horse.
1:58:18
Patrick King: Oh, yeah.
1:58:18
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
1:58:19
They would forget
1:58:19
Patrick King: to breathe.
1:58:20
Mm-hmm.
1:58:20
Rupert Isaacson: Because adrenaline will also stop you breathing.
1:58:23
Mm-hmm.
1:58:23
Now, horses tend not to do that.
1:58:25
They'll tend- Right â¦ they, they can cope with adrenaline weirdly
1:58:27
better than we can- Mm-hmm â¦ because they, they're running machines.
1:58:31
Mm-hmm.
1:58:31
But it's when they're in that, "Ooh."
1:58:35
And if you think about anything that we introduce in the dressage
1:58:38
thing, it's their first reaction to everything is gonna be, "Ooh,"
1:58:42
because that's just what they are.
1:58:44
So i- it's very interesting that you, you bring this process of
1:58:47
breathing up for the horse, and I like the fact that you say, "Stop."
1:58:54
Look for the diaphragmatic breath, 'cause I had not considered at all
1:58:58
until you said it that the diaphragm sits under that lumbar vertebra.
1:59:03
Mm.
1:59:03
So if it's contracted, you can't actually engage that hind- And
1:59:09
Patrick King: goâ¦
1:59:09
And it sits, sits under the lumbar spine.
1:59:11
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
1:59:12
Patrick King: Does a little sliding board action down to the sternum.
1:59:16
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
1:59:16
Patrick King: So if they're not, if they're not able to move their
1:59:19
lumbar spine, they're not able to lift their thoracic sling So we can't
1:59:23
get an elevation of the forehand and a lowering of the haunches if
1:59:26
they're not really breathing right.
1:59:28
I mean, unless you are a very masterful manipulator and can push a horse up
1:59:34
into things and get them to do things in spite, and there are plenty of
1:59:37
riders that are capable of doing that.
1:59:39
I'm not talented enough to do that, and I wouldn't want to if I was.
1:59:43
Mm-hmm.
1:59:44
But, you know, can it happen?
1:59:46
Yes, it can.
1:59:47
Absolutely.
1:59:48
Can we go throughâ¦
1:59:49
I've seen plenty of students and riders go through a four-minute
1:59:52
dressage test and not breathe.
1:59:54
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
1:59:55
Patrick King: Right?
1:59:56
But it's not optimal.
1:59:58
Rupert Isaacson: No.
1:59:58
Patrick King: Right?
1:59:59
It's not optimal.
2:00:00
Rupert Isaacson: No, and back to why are we doing this in the first place.
2:00:02
If you feel that you can't breathe, that's inherently unjoyful, you know?
2:00:06
So- Funny,
2:00:08
Patrick King: that.
2:00:09
Yeah.
2:00:09
Exactly.
2:00:10
Rupert Isaacson: I think what we should do here, Patrick, this is, this is great.
2:00:13
We can go, we're go- we're bouncing from rabbit hole to rabbit hole.
2:00:17
Right.
2:00:17
But all of these rabbit holes are very useful because they keep bringing us
2:00:21
back to how to activate with ease.
2:00:26
Patrick King: Mm-hmm,
2:00:26
Rupert Isaacson: yes.
2:00:27
How to balan- retrieve balance with ease, how to deal with
2:00:31
anxiety and replace that with ease.
2:00:34
Patrick King: Mm-hmm.
2:00:34
Rupert Isaacson: So here's my proposition, because we're, we're
2:00:36
entering the, we- we're about two hours now, and I could just keep going.
2:00:40
Oh, yeah.
2:00:41
Yeah.
2:00:41
But I have to go and meet Schweinhaxe with my mother-in-law.
2:00:44
Okay.
2:00:44
And we are not late for this because we- And so what my proposition is that
2:00:50
we continue this conversation, but what we'll do is we'll, with your permission
2:00:56
we'll have another conversation where we'll talk for about the same amount of
2:01:01
time, and then we'll break the subjects up into, like, 20-minute segments afterwards.
2:01:06
So maybe you have a little think about what are the things that you would
2:01:10
really like to extrapolate on that you often don't maybe get as much
2:01:14
of- Mm-hmm â¦ a chance to, or that you'd like to let people know about,
2:01:17
and I'll think of some questions too.
2:01:20
Patrick King: That'd
2:01:20
Rupert Isaacson: be great.
2:01:21
And then I think, why don't we reconvene and do that, and then we'll release
2:01:26
tho- this, this is more like the story of how you got where you are, and what
2:01:29
do you do and why do you do it, and-
2:01:31
Patrick King: Mm
2:01:31
Rupert Isaacson: blah, blah, blah, and what have you learned.
2:01:33
Now I think we can deepen and broaden the conversation which is
2:01:37
something I love to do with people.
2:01:39
So- Yeah â¦ are you down for that?
2:01:40
Can, can we- I
2:01:41
Patrick King: am.
2:01:41
Absolutely.
2:01:42
Rupert Isaacson: All right.
2:01:43
Patrick King: Yeah.
2:01:43
You don't have to twist my arm on that one.
2:01:45
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
2:01:47
Patrick King: You said two hours, and I looked at the clock like,
2:01:49
"Wait, this is, we've just been on here about 15 minutes, haven't we?"
2:01:51
You
2:01:52
Rupert Isaacson: know, when, when people talk about the stuff that
2:01:54
they love and enjoy, it's amazing.
2:01:55
Yeah.
2:01:55
And everyone says, you know, "Oh, I won't be able to talk when we do these.
2:01:58
Oh, I've got nothing to say."
2:01:59
It's like, I think
2:02:01
Patrick King: you probably do.
2:02:02
That's it, right?
2:02:02
Rupert Isaacson: That's it.
2:02:03
Patrick King: That's- It's so funny though, isn't it?
2:02:05
Because theâ¦
2:02:05
I'm sure looking back over the, the two hours that we've talked,
2:02:08
you know, "Tell me about yourself.
2:02:10
Who are you and what do you do?"
2:02:11
And, like, that's the slow, dry part.
2:02:13
Mm-hmm.
2:02:13
And then let's talk about something really interesting.
2:02:15
Let'sâ¦
2:02:15
You know?
2:02:16
That's, that's when things take off, for
2:02:18
Rupert Isaacson: sure.
2:02:18
But you can'tâ¦
2:02:18
I find that you can't get to the interesting stuff until you know the
2:02:22
h- story of why someone even got-
2:02:24
Patrick King: Yeah
2:02:25
Rupert Isaacson: there.
2:02:25
Patrick King: Yeah.
2:02:26
Absolutely
2:02:26
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: th- there's always the, the human story that precedes
2:02:31
the technician, if you like, or the-
2:02:33
Patrick King: Mm-hmm
2:02:33
â¦ Rupert Isaacson: informs how the art is then practiced.
2:02:39
Patrick King: Exactly.
2:02:40
And it- Well, it brings the, it brings the meaning and the,
2:02:43
the core driving behind it.
2:02:46
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
2:02:47
Patrick King: Yeah.
2:02:48
Rupert Isaacson: It does.
2:02:49
So- yeah â¦ and for the listeners and the viewers, don't worry,
2:02:52
you're gonna get more Patrick.
2:02:53
So, you know- â¦ relax, you know.
2:02:56
And if you've got, if you've got questions that you want him to answer or us to
2:03:00
talk about just put 'em in the comments.
2:03:03
We will- That'd be great.
2:03:04
Yeah â¦ we read them all.
2:03:05
And we willâ¦
2:03:05
We haven't yet gotten so big that we can't read our comments, and
2:03:09
we sort of live for that day.
2:03:10
Then we will answer them.
2:03:13
And I'll, I'll let- Absolutely â¦ Patrick know.
2:03:15
Patrick will probably read 'em anyway, you know.
2:03:17
And all right.
2:03:18
Patrick King: Yeah.
2:03:19
That'll be great.
2:03:20
That'll be great.
2:03:20
I look forward to it.
2:03:21
Rupert Isaacson: Likewise.
2:03:22
Me too.
2:03:23
Patrick King: And I'm looking forward to digging more into Rupert and
2:03:27
what you're doing on my podcast, so.
2:03:30
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, anytime.
2:03:31
I can bore for England, so, you know.
2:03:37
Hind leg of a donkey, no problem.
2:03:38
I can bore the balls off a buffalo.
2:03:40
Yeah, yeah.
2:03:41
So how do people contact you, find out about you, sign up for your thing
2:03:45
learn with you, go to your clinics?
2:03:48
All the things.
2:03:48
Patrick King: All the things.
2:03:49
All the things.
2:03:50
So I'm, I'm, I guess I'm all over the place on social media.
2:03:54
So looking up Patrick King Horsemanship and Dressage on Facebook.
2:03:58
There's an older page that I unfortunately lost access to that's
2:04:02
just Patrick King Horsemanship.
2:04:03
But Patrick King Horsemanship and Dressage on Facebook, on Instagram.
2:04:08
My websites you can find me at pkhorsemanship.com
2:04:12
or my online academy at
2:04:17
academyforclassicalhorsemanship.com.
2:04:18
And yeah, send me an email, send me a message through,
2:04:22
through any of the, the ways.
2:04:23
If you have questions about anything, if you wanna learn more about anything
2:04:26
feel free, reach out directly.
2:04:28
I can be tricky to get ahold of because I manage it all myself, but yeah, reach out.
2:04:33
Rupert Isaacson: Brilliant.
2:04:33
Okay.
2:04:33
So those are the plugs, lads.
2:04:34
You heard it.
2:04:35
So reach out to him.
2:04:37
Go learn what you can
2:04:38
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
2:04:42
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2:04:46
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2:04:50
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2:04:56
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2:04:56
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2:05:00
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2:05:07
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2:05:26
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2:05:30
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2:05:41
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2:05:42
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2:05:43
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2:05:47
In the meantime, remember, live free.
2:05:52
Ride free.